


help you suffer, give you reasons not to die

by constanted



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Aliens, Angst, Bisexual Male Character, Character Study, Dramadey, Found Family, Gen, Heavyhanded Metaphors About Death, Political Organizing, The Author Projects Their Own ADHD Onto A Character Who Is In All Fairness Coded With ADHD, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 11:35:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16809847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constanted/pseuds/constanted
Summary: “I’ve lost a lot. I'm just glad that I found a new family! And I'm sad to lose this one, too.”(or: the life and times of a hero of the multiverse, in five acts).





	help you suffer, give you reasons not to die

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this, i guess? my relisten made me feel some things, if you haven't seen from my fic output, and i ended up just making a goddamn document to compile headcanon and theory and all of that in and it ended up being this.
> 
> the title is paraphrased from carson's antigonick.
> 
> proper notes at the end.
> 
> warnings: suicidal ideation in acts two, three, and four. suicidal behavior in act two. it is not described in great detail, but it is definitely talked about. act three has some pretty rough injuries, but they're not too graphic. there's also some sexual content in act three, but it's no more explicit than, like. a mitski song. drugs and alcohol are used. there's some Fantasy Ableism and some Real Ableism, which is mostly me projecting my own Disability Feelings but that's okay.
> 
> uhhh yes
> 
> enjoy!

_act one: boy_

“Magnus Burnsides was born beside an expanse of violet sea into a seemingly charmed life. His family, while not wealthy, was of some academic prestige, and he had a happy childhood. What triggered his propensity for the fighting arts, rather than the magical sciences his kin excelled in, we will never know. But what we do know is that his career in security started with, what else, but a dog.”

-an excerpt from _The Meaning of Strength: An Unofficial Biography of the Protector of Story & Song_, by Aurelia Macdon of Tesseralia. 

__________________________________________

_i._

His mother is scolding him for not being home sooner, and for not taking care of himself. He is eleven, and his whole mouth tastes like iron. She frets and casts and asks him questions—is the dog okay? Did he recognize the boys who hurt him? Is he sure that he doesn’t have a concussion? Who is the mayor? And he answers her dutifully, of course. The dog limped away, the boys go to the upper school and one of them mentioned his grandpa. He doesn’t have a concussion and he knows it because she’s run the test eight times and he’s passed all of them. The mayor is Penelope Mournowl. And so on, and so fourth. He knows that his mother means well. She is always, always working, though, healing even now when she is off her shift.

He finishes wrapping his ankle in bandages and she seals them with a spell he barely recognizes, but which numbs wherever the bandages touch. It feels like static, not quite unpleasant. _Sci-fi/Fantasy Parks and Rec_ is the background noise, giving his mother a certain extra manic energy to her as she casts _another_ test spell on his head.

“Spell slots, mom,” he says, grinning wider than the cuts on his face would like him to, and she stares at him.

“Was that tooth loose already?”

“Yeah.” He wiggles it with his tongue to prove it, tastes iron even more than before. It’s hanging by a thin string of gum, so he takes the effort to rip it out, throws it onto the altar with practiced aim. His mother gives him a resigned thumbs up for a good job.

And she exhales, sits down next to him on the big blue couch that his grandpa had bought them for Candlenights last year, takes her long, dark braids out of the bun she’d held them in whilst scattering around the living room in worry. Talking about how he’ll miss the last of jellyfish season because of the cuts if they don’t heal up soon, and that’s always so sad. And how, those terrible boys, I _bet_ they’re the ones making dad’s class hell, damn it all to hell.

“And you took your hormone potions this morning? Because if you’d forgotten, you just gotta go the week without, they don’t mesh well with head injuries.”

“Yeah, yeah, I took ‘em when I woke up, remember? ‘Cuz I asked for the fruity cereal because it helps with the aftertaste.”

“I know you know, baby, I’m just. Talkin’ to myself. Mags, _m’ork’eto_ , you know—you don’t have to protect everybody, right? You could’ve called for help, or just—“

“Yeah, but somebody has to protect every somebody, and in this situation, I was the somebody.”

“They—you were hit with _rocks_. I’ve been there, Mag, it’s not a pleasant experience.”

“Yeah, but the dog didn’t deserve it—“

His mother sighs, rubs his shoulder, which still kinda hurts. She casts another spell and he rolls his eyes, a little bit. He looks a lot like her, which his grandpa says is because Burnsides genes are stronger than any rich asshole at a party, and that’s what matters, in the end. And Magnus doesn’t really engage, there, because, sure, he doesn’t like rich assholes, nor does he ever really want to meet his dad—(called Desmond, works for the Orion Foundation; Magnus never asked for the last name, he doesn’t want it)—but, look, he doesn’t wanna get involved, and it makes his mom uncomfortable. But he’s proud of it, too, proud that he has the same nose, the same eyes. They’re as pitch black as anybody’s, but hers are just plain old cool looking, shaped like almonds and with a certain light caught in them. Magnus likes light, the suns and the other stars and fire and home, they’re wonderful and they mean good things, he thinks. That’s what stories say, so that’s what he believes. Magnus likes believing in stories.

“When are the elves coming in tomorrow?”

“Noon. It’s just for a month, while they wait on their application response. They’ll be in grandpa’s room, while he’s over on the islands. They’re good kids, from what I’ve heard from them on the phone. They could teach you magic; they offered.”

His mother is a protector too. He knows this like he knows everything; he wants to be like her. She takes in people who need protection, and she heals people who need healing, regardless of anything else about them.

He tells her more about the dog, and she smiles, says that if she sees it at the docks again, she’ll try and bring it home. He starts making dinner—it’s the last time he’ll do it until the elves leave, because they insist on paying their way with food. He’s okay at cooking, though, and he likes it, and right now, it distracts him from the cuts on his skin. It’s just soup from stock from last night’s leftovers, because that’s easy, and that can keep him distracted for a long time. His grandfather says his soups taste good, and his mother always brings in some of the leftovers to work in a thermos. He likes being good at things.

His grandfather calls, that night. Tells them about the crystals on the islands that might actually help them with the temporal project, which Magnus doesn’t really get. It sounds cool, though. He’s working with some grad students from the Institute, which means that this might actually get published, and that the funding is actually _good_. His mother tells him about the fight, and Magnus apologizes a lot. “He’s got your spirit, Kiva,” is all that his grandpa (Dr. Ari Burnsides, notable divination scholar, who left academia to teach children, for shame, for shame is what Institute people say whenever Magnus shakes their hands during Career Day or at Fancy Temple Parties) says.

“West Ryland cast Vicious Mockery on me,” Magnus offers, “And the burn wasn’t even _that_ good, but it still hurt, and I don’t like that. And by hurt, I mean physically. The burn was just about my sweater being nerdy, which it wasn’t. It was the orange one."

“Ryland’s a shithead, but he’s damn good at bardic spells, I’ll give him that. He’s a solid B student elsewhere. And he cheats. You’ll prove him wrong when you’re his age, eh, kid?”

“I mean, I hope.”

He hopes that the dog is okay, more than anything. He keeps thinking about the dog, dreams about it. Looks for it every time he’s by the docks, every time he makes eye contact with those boys who he fought. He thinks that the dog will be important, someday. He _hopes_ that the dog will be important someday.

_ii._

Magnus was born in Cat’s Cradle, and he hasn’t lived anywhere else. It’s on the Southern Continent, by the sea, and the tents and houses and buildings are all painted in the shades of violet that compose it. It’s only an hour from Duolios by car, so students at the Institute vacation here or live here for cheap housing if they can teleport, and goddamn, is it cute. That’s what every out-of-towner says.

It isn’t a small town, but everybody knows Magnus because everybody knows who Magnus lives with. So he’s not surprised when Dr. Palmer The Counsellor starts off his second appointment by asking about how his grandfather is. “He taught me everything I know about divination, honestly,” she says, which is what most people say.

“Yeah, he’s, uh—old. But he’s good! Still really into future telling. And stuff. He’s into tea leaves lately. I mean, free chamomile for me, I’m down, but—“

She laughs. “You’re getting—surprisingly, in terms of the news I’m about to—well. You know. You’re getting very good grades in divination courses.”

“S’easy to fake? I mean, no offense. To my grandpa. Or you, I guess. But, like. It’s not hard? Most other magics you have to show results, but with Divination, you can pretty much just. Y’know. Know what an emotion is.”

“Well, you should stay—well. In theory classes. You seem to understand it well enough. You’re—how old?”

“Fourteen?”

“And are you planning continuing your education after upper—“

“I’m gonna apply to the Institute, but if I don’t get in, I’m gonna just. Get an apprenticeship with somebody? Probably travel. Dunno.”

“Hm. Uh, Magnus, what—I called you in here today, because, well. Your teachers are _concerned_ about your grades—“

“Yeah, we went over this last time.”

“Of course. Um. Magnus, you just. I know that it’s probably disappointing, but you can’t do magic. Ever. It’s just—it’s not something your body can do. Not even if you take a pact or train it, it’s just—it’s out of your purview. I'm--Look. I'm very sorry."

He’s not surprised. Dr. Palmer comments on that fact, and he nods. He figured that out years ago, when he tried to learn a cantrip from some out-of-towner to impress Andrey The Cute Boy In The Class Above Him and even if he got all of the runes and words and motions right, he just couldn’t do it. But he’s okay with it. He’s tough, and he’s good, and that’s all he really needs. He can protect just fine without magic.And it’s not an uncommon issue—it’s probably the most common mutation in humans, tieflings, gnomes, and one other race that he forgets because he usually falls asleep in science class and he is mostly reading notes taken by Key The Person He Kissed At Erin’s Candlelights Party Last Month, whose handwriting is terrible.

“Again, you’re impressive enough as a student if you just, uh. You know, apply yourself more—and that you can still manage Sci-Fi/Fantasy Baseball at your level—“

“I’m really tough.”

He is. He doesn't like people knowing that he's weak, though.

And people find out, because he doesn’t take arcana classes anymore, and people laugh at him for that, and he kicks their asses, because, again, he’s very strong. He’s not jealous of magic. Like, sure, he _wishes_ he could do it, but he’s still tougher than anybody else he knows. His mother and his grandfather worry—he’s already a quote unquote troubled kid because of the whole attention-deficit and no-magic and the like, and a violent streak—beating up the classmate of his who made fun of the shy prodigy girl who was back in town for Fated-Days, fighting an Institute student who got too close to somebody who didn’t want said student around—doesn’t add anything better to the equation.

He feels like he’s disappointing them.

He doesn’t really know how to fix that, so he doesn’t. They forgive him.

“You know I don’t give a shit about you doin’ magic, right, Maggie?” his grandpa says, “Hell, it’s probably for the better. Magic gets boring.”

“I know.”

“Yeah, bud, just—why’re you so hell-bent on provin’ that knowledge?”

His grandpa is writing down runes for a knitting party at the Temple tonight. Magnus points at it, “If you wanna make it desserts only, you gotta curve that line. I know that you were mad last week when Gwynn just conjured a normal dinner instead of the reg.”

“Good eye. Who do you know that’s castin’ sixth level conjuration spells?”

“Assistant Coach Summerwinds was raised by druids and she was casting this for the postseason party last year.”

“Gotcha.”

His grandfather starts talking about a druid that he knew back in his military days, one who would turn into a bear and tear people to shreds, and how it terrified him. Magic is boring, but magic is terrifying, Magnus, and it’s rare to find a happy place in the middle. Magnus, in turn, responds that turning into a bear is admittedly a dope power to have, and his grandfather sighs, says that that’s not really the point, but he admits that it’s true.

“I was going to be a woodcarver, y’know, before the war.”

“Sounds boring.”

“Not boring, kid, it’s hittin’ wood with weapons. Right up your alley.”

“Nah. Don’t think so. I think I’m gonna be, like. An adventurer or a musician or something. Where I can move. And I don’t—“

“You wanna get out of Cat’s Cradle?”

“Yeah.”

“Old buddy of mine’s planning on proposing something at the Institute, y’know. It won’t get approved until he manages to work his way up and also. Work miracles, y’know, but—look, if you want adventure, and all that, I’m sure this’ll be even more up your alley.”

Magnus is really only applying to the IPRE out of obligation, but he’s not gonna tell that to his grandpa, no. He’s not gonna get in, and he’ll just stay a disappointment, and then one day he’ll prove himself somewhere else—on a battlefield, or an adventure, or something.

Hell, maybe he’ll learn how to turn into a bear, or something. He knows that’s probably out of the picture, but, look, he can dream.

_iii._

He takes up piano when he is sixteen years old, because he’s got restless hands and he likes music, and he falls into it like he falls into everything he loves. He practices every morning because he doesn’t have class until ten because he used to oversleep even if he doesn’t anymore. He’s working on a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fall Out Boy cover (he’s sixteen, okay? That is, at least, what he tells his cousin when they tease him) one morning, getting tripped up on the melody because he thinks the key is wrong, but he’s not very good with keys, so he tends to focus more on the keys, as in, the things he touches, rather than flats and sharps.

His mother comes up to him and says that he has to go to the hospital with her. And Magnus doesn’t like the hospital, doesn’t like sterility. It doesn’t suit his mother, who is so warm and kind, even if she works there. It doesn’t suit his grandfather, who has been there for weeks and weeks and weeks. His mother knows this, and so she doesn’t make him go unless it’s an emergency. And Magnus knows that emergency means somebody is dead, and Magnus knows that, right now, somebody means grandpa, and—

“I got a gift for you, kid. Wanted to—told you about my almost job, right?”

“Carpentry.”

“Woodcarvin’, yeah. And, uh. I wanted you to—to take this. To remember me by.”

“You don’t have to—“

In the box that his grandfather hands him (metal, painted the same weird blue color that Magnus never sees in nature, the one that higher-ups always wear), there is a pocket knife, the letter _B_ engraved into its blade—dulled, a little bit rusted. The handle is made of old wood, nothing engraved into it. Magnus holds it in his hands and stares. He doesn’t know the point of it, really—he could probably use it in a fight, or to carve some dope shit onto the piano, or for cooking, or something—

“Thank you,” he says, instead of asking a question. And he swallows, “I’ll use it whenever I can.”

“Thanks, son.”

He dies an hour later, smiling.

The cause of death is arcane overflow. Magnus wants to make a joke, maybe he’d still be alive if he’d passed that onto me, but he stops himself because his mother looks broken. And he feels broken, too, but not so much as she looks. Loss feels like this, for Magnus, a hammer on the chest, all impact, no reflex. Loss is a bruise, and he cries at night, sure. And he cries in class, and he cries, but it doesn’t ever feel like it’s real.

He plays piano at the funeral’s reception (fate and death are lovers, and we must celebrate death as we do life), fingers clumsy (bruised), and a guest walks up behind him, comments on the fact that he doesn’t often see black eyes at academics’ funerals.

“Got in a fight yesterday,” he says, without much feeling. He’s not very good at this song anyway, and there’s a gramophone, so he turns around. Doesn’t expect the nasal voice from behind him to be cool-looking (scruffy but well-kept facial hair, tough-looking scars, bright red jacket) or a gnome (Cat’s Cradle is largely populated by larger races, with less space for clan-based smaller races. There are merchants, of course, but they are usually from the other continent or at least out of town). But he is, and Magnus tries to look cool as well.

“I’m assuming you’re the grandson.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“He said you were good trouble.”

“Well, I dunno if that’s—I mean, I’m trouble, and I’m good at it.”

The man—Institute patch on his chest—smiles. He’s not a great conversationalist.

“Look,” says the gnome, “Your grandpa was the best damn support I ever had. Always sticking up for my… let’s say. Wilder ideas.”

“Yeah, he, uh, he liked wild ideas.”

“My program at the institute got approved. We could use some good trouble. Here’s my card.”

And he doesn’t even get a “sorry for your loss” out of it.

_iv._

He applies for the program, though, calls up the gnome (Cptn. D. Davenport; Cap’n’port is Magnus’ preferred portmanteau) to say that he has. He apologizes for his grades, says that he’s probably not an ideal candidate.

“I’m not selecting who gets in, Burnsides don’t—this is the fifth time you’ve called me this week.”

“Yeah, well, uh. I don’t know why you recommended I apply here. I’m not—I’m not a mage, I _can’t_ be a mage, and—like, I hit things good. I could probably get a security gig on campus, but—I’m not cut out for _research_. My only skills of note are animal handling and athletics.”

“And maybe that’s a niche we need filled.”

Apparently, it is, because he gets into Cap’n’port’s “EXPLORATION” program, a class of twenty undergrads, ten grads, and five post-grads. His mother—a proud graduate of the Academy of our Lady Fate, rather than the Institute—is proud of him, hugs him and talks him through basic city life essentials. She goes heavy on the packing, and he shows up on campus a month later with an overlarge backpack, fancy new clothes (a blue binder that his mother called “an eyesore,” but it’s probably good luck. He wants it to be good luck, so it is), and a nervous-if-cocky smile on his face. He’s wearing the Very Cool Sunglasses that he spent his dog-walking money on. They are not prescription, even if his Mandatory IPRE Medical Exam said that he probably needs his vision fixed.

His first minute there, he’s knocked over by a blunt wave of arcane energy, and an elf is standing over him and apologizing.

“Oh by God, Lulu, you killed a fuckin’ _kid_!” yells another elf, and Magnus holds up a middle finger as he pushes himself up. “Oh. Nevermind, weak-ass casting.”

"Fuck you," says the first elf, "I could kill this kid if I wanted to."

" _Sure_."

He joins in, because his mom told him that making friends on the first day was important, “Yeah, I’m, uh, pretty hard to kill.”

The elves—twins, beautiful, the one who knocked him over grinning wildly—look familiar; they’ve probably crashed in the house before or went for discrete healing or some shit.

“You in Dav’s program?”

“Cap’n’port brought me on, yeah—“

“Cap’n’port,” says one of the elves—he’s taller than Magnus, with dark hair and an wearing alarming amount of clashing patterns, “I like that.”

“How did you know I was in EXPLORATION?”

“Because you look like a baby deer and today’s only the starting day for the undergrads in there, other students come in next week,” says the other twin—she’s _also_ taller than Magnus, wearing a few less layers than her brother, “We ran into the humanities one having an anxiety attack outside of our apartment. She’s sweet, but she was hard to talk to on account of the whole Hyperventilating Causing Her To Put Up Wards thing. She was nice, though, I like her.” The other elf nods.

“Well, I’m easy to talk to,” Magnus says, “I’m the. Uh. I don’t know what program I’m in—“

“Folder says Animal Handling, Fighting Strategy, and Theoretical Divination,” the one with the patterns says, “So, like—among the less nerdy. Good on you, kid.”

“Magnus,” he says, offers a handshake.

“Mango, gotcha.”

“Got it in one, yeah.”

“I’m Taako, this is Lup, we’re, like—the only cool people here. Grads. Transmutation savant, evocation savant. Lu’s also in theoretical necromancy shit, so, uh, you can talk about nerd danger magic without actually doing it together.”

“Taako was a philosophy minor,” Lup contributes, “So if you wanna ponder why he’s such an asshole, he’ll be down.”

Someone runs over Taako’s foot with a scooter, and said scooter is instantly turned into a boulder. The scooter-man ( _Douglas_ , per Taako’s insults) yells, and Magnus decides, instantly, okay, yeah, he might not have had too many friends on account of his whole “troubled” thing, and because he was somehow both a shithead _and a_ goody-two-shoes, but these two are his _people_.

They start walking away, and he follows with a smile on his face. They make fun of him for sticking around, but he does it anyway—he spends his time outside of class with them. Lup’s a good sparring partner, and Taako’s a good emotional outlet. Even if he won't admit it. They apparently keep him around for muscle, but he knows that’s a joke, mostly. 

The humanities girl (arts, bardic studies, abjuration) apparently recognizes him as “Oh, you’re the Burnsides boy that my aunts complain about, right? Uh. Not to be rude. I’m sure you’re actually wonderful, if you’re here, but—look, I’m not a social butterfly. Sorry.” She’s a former child prodigy, current successful biographer, but she’s only been alive for the same eighteen-and-a-half years Magnus has. He tries not to feel inadequate. She’s damn good with a quarterstaff, though, and almost beats him during melee training a couple of times, even when he stops going easy on her. She, much like Taako, mostly utilizes Magnus for piggyback rides (even though they are _both_ taller than him, which is unfair) and extended goofs. Cap’n’port remarks on those bonds, specifically, says that he “didn’t expect them to click at _all_ ,” which Magnus thinks is ridiculous. He flocks to people who need protecting, and who are generally funny and nice, and Taako and Lup and Lucretia are all of the above. Wizards are easy to break, and Lucretia’s too nervous for pretty much anything.

(And, look, Taako helping him transition? A great benefit. Social capital gained through befriending people who are a different kind of cool than he is? A _wonderful_ benefit. Free housing at Taako and Lup’s apartment, so long as he and Lucretia split the couches and Also Don’t Rat On Us For The Alcohol How Are You _Children_ Blackmailing Us Like This? That’s maybe the best benefit, because Duolios rent is more than his night guard gig pays).

He’s never really succeeded anywhere before now. But he succeeds here. He becomes proficient with martial arts at “record-breaking” speeds, destroys Institute weapons training in an hour. His classes go well—he likes the zoology parts more than the divination parts, but Lucretia’s his partner in the latter, so that’s nice.

“Empathy,” she says, “That’s why you’re good at this. I’m going for a bardic casting of detect emotions, and it’s just—it’s failing.“

“Uh, it works better if you know your subject well. Go for something. Something that hits close to home, like, uh, for my mom, I’d be like,” and he does the gesture which means, “conjure a keyboard,” which makes Lucretia roll her eyes, but she does it. And he plays the chorus of that Sci-Fi/Fantasy Prince song that his mother always sang _(maybe i'm just like my father: too bold/maybe you're just like my mother/she's never satisfied)_ , and Lucretia laughs, sings along.

“What if I wanted to cast it on you? No music, I’m a verbal-visual bard.”

“Straight up? Uh, probably something about this dog I met when I was a kid.”

“Tell me about the dog.”

And he does.

He wonders why he was chosen, a lot of the time. Taako and Lup and Lucretia joke when they say muscle, but there are rumors about what this program is for. It’s, with some exceptions, mostly young people. Not much family left—Lucretia was disowned, Taako and Lup are orphans, even Magnus comes from a one-parent household that’s sustaining itself without him. Davenport’s a radical, people say, wants to explore the planar system _literally_.

But that’s not _possible_. Space travel’s just a hypothetical. Full-scale planar exploration is centuries away, that’s day one stuff.

_v._

He’s walking home from a bar with Taako—transmuted fake ID peeking out from his pocket as it turns back into one of Lup’s semi-ironic scrunchies—when it happens. 

Lup spots them, waves them over, and it turns out that she and Lucretia were doing the exact same thing the next block over. A laugh is had by all. They’re joined by one of the post-grads, the necromancy guy that Lup’s helping with his dissertation, who Magnus doesn’t know well but who seems pretty nice, as far as necromancers go. There were anti-necromancy protests a few years back, Magnus remembers, when he was fourteen or so. He wonders if this guy, Barry, was involved. There’s a scar on his left cheek, looks like it was left by radiant damage. Which—looks like that could be from that, yeah.

They’re chatting mindlessly, the five of them, when it happens. Lucretia’s going on about some profile she’s writing for the Duolios Register on President Rorschach, how he kept talking over her while she was still asking softballs. She’s interrupted in a shockingly vivid description of a grating laugh when a shooting star—not uncommon—comes much closer and brighter than any star should—absolutely uncommon. It comes closer, and closer, and closer, and Magnus, being very strong and very inebriated, tries to catch it. It phases through his arm, and it’s _larger_ than his whole body.

Everybody stares at it, no one talking until the only two other people on the street—too dark to determine anything about, prior to the fall, rush over. Cap’n’port, and then Magnus’ biology professor, who is, per Lup, a purveyor of really good weed to students that he likes. Which is to say, Lup has made Magnus schmooze his way to the old guy’s good graces. Dr. Highchurch says, “What the hell was that?” just as Davenport asks, “Are the five of you hurt?” And then they look at each other, and they laugh.

“We’re fine,” Lucretia says in her Proper Voice, in spite of the fact that she had been _audibly_ high a few seconds ago, “I promise, Captain, uh.”

“That’s a big ol’ light,” Lup says, “Uh, gettin’ about—Taako, you’re better at ol’ D-M than me.”

“Magic as _hell_.”

Magnus is trying to ignore the approximately eighty-thousand impulses in his brain, which are saying variants of “Eat it,” “Touch it,” “Punch it,” and “Talk to it.”

“I wanna eat it,” he says, after some thought.

“It might be—bud, it might be radioactive.”

“I mean, we’re already close enough to it, he might as well.”

“For science," Barry nods.

“Thanks, Bluejeans, you got me.”

“I don’t think it will taste… good. It’s an orb of light, Magnus.”

Davenport is already holding him back, whilst Dr. Highchurch has wrangled the others into an Eat It Chant, which Magnus is definitely basking in. Davenport is a lot stronger than Magnus would expect for a man who weighs less than a third of his weight. 

Magnus manages to lift him, remembering that, and then touches the light, more solid after landing. He signals that it doesn’t hurt, and Taako _immediately_ touches it, followed by Lup, then Merle and then Barry, and then Davenport, and after some shorthand notes into the journal in her hand, Lucretia. It feels—warm, is the thing. His mind feels clearer, less foggy from the alcohol, and, yeah, he still wants to eat it, but, like—

He can do so much with this. He can protect people with this. He can give himself magic with this. He can stop so much from going wrong, and—

“We need to bring it to the labs,” says Barry, “I can start tests on it. It’s clearly got… potential, if y’all are feeling what I’m feeling, and—look, I think we should do some tests. If you’re interested, I’m gonna—“ He levitates the light, surprised by the ease with which it is done.

“I’ll follow you, Hallwinter.”

“Yessir.”

The two of them, Cap’n’port and Barry, exit with the light, and Taako pats Magnus on the back. “There, there, big boy. You’ll eat a giant alien orb someday, I promise you.”

“I mean—a big part of science is putting things in your mouth,” Magnus says, and Lucretia laughs a little bit.

Merle says, “You kids good?”

“Fine, Doc,” Magnus says, “Just—uh.You know. Kinda—“

“Yeah. I gotcha. If you need anything, a—a prayer, or whatever, you know wheret’find me.

“Thanks, Merle,” Lup says, waves him off. Lucretia looks extraordinarily nervous, but she’s scribbling everything down with intense speed. 

Magnus calls his mother the next morning, and she tells him to turn on the TV. And there’s his name, with a list of discoverers of a new form of energy. Barry is giving a statement—Dr. Sildar Hallwinter of the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration: “We’re lucky that this fell into the hands of students, rather than, uh—well, people who would abuse it. The worst we could’ve done with it is, honestly, let our undergrad martial artist eat it.” He laughs and his mother is laughing on the phone.

There’s a letter under the apartment door, in the Cap’s chickenscratch— _rumors re: mission true. briefing in my office, 3pm. Barry and I have a blueprint. -D._

_vi._

His mother doesn’t take well to the idea of him leaving the planet. He understands that, he does, but—he’s _good_ at fighting, he’s good at spending time with people. On his twentieth birthday, half a month before the mission, he goes home, Taako having agreed to be his plus one so as to piss off people who were shitty to Magnus in upper school.

His mother pulls him aside, just as his old teammates are arriving. A hyperlocal human-elf dialect streams out of her mouth, worries and I’m-So-Prouds and the occasional curse.

“I don’t want to see you hurt’s all,” she says, back in Common.

“You don’t need to protect me, ma—“

“I do. You protect everybody but yourself, _m’ork’eto_ , you need somebody who’s got your back.”

“This ship runs on us having each others’ backs, it’s—you can trust these people, look, Taako, he’s—he’s really good at magic, and—“

“Are you sure you’re not just their meat shield? Your father—“

“My father was an asshole. I know. And he doesn’t work for the Institute anymore, I looked. Not that he’d—“

“He knows you exist.”

“Oh, yeah, we knew that, he’s just terrible. But he works for some magitek corp now. But I’m here ‘cuz I’m security, yeah, but—I’m mostly here ‘cuz I’m—like, I’m good. They like good people.”

Taako weaves his arms around Magnus’ back, making him jump a little bit. “Mangus is in safe hands, Kiv, promise ya. I won’t let him get himself killed.”

He offers his mother a thumbs up.

“Mangus?”

“He—he does it for the sake of doing it. He’s an ass.” Taako elbows him, and Magnus shrugs him off. He lands by the dog, who jumps up into Magnus’s arms the second Taako comes within a foot of stepping on her.

“Demon,” Taako says, deadpan, “Evil dog.” Magnus coos at her.

“Her name is Greta,” Magnus explains, scratching behind the ears, “She’s not evil at all. She’s _ancient_ , though.”

“She’s due for her check-up soon,” his mother sighs.

“She’s looking at me like she’s gonna eat my soul.”

“She’s _blind_ , dumbass, her eyes are just a lil’ bit milky. She’s full of love.”

“And fleas.”

“Kiva Burnsides, you understand me,” Taako says, “I will make sure your son does not do slash eat anything that is definitely, veritably unsafe, unless it’s funny.”

“Reassuring.”

His mother hugs him goodbye weeks later, on the morning of the launch. He’s on his fifth cup of coffee and his third use of Lucretia’s hangover-cure cantrip (triggered in him with a tapped beat on his forehead, which Lucretia concludes unnecessarily with a flick and an eyeroll. She tells him to come back in two months, and that she can’t wait to read the stories about his shenanigans. 

“Do you want to keep the black eye?”

“Makes me look badass.”

“Sure. You—you always say that.”

“Shows that I’m not a nerd?”

“Of course.”

She hugs him. Intimacy is not uncommon between the two of them, but it feels important, right here. “Take care of him,” she shouts to Davenport, who nods quickly. “All of them,” she continues. “Yourself, too.”

She hands Magnus some last minute items—a deck of cards, a photo from his childhood—right after that fight with the older boys, just she and him. One of the twins must’ve taken it—he barely remembers them; they were quiet, then. But they must’ve taken this, and that warms him up. That hard candy from Mr. Magid’s market stand that he can’t find anything like here in Duolios.

“I love you, you know. Little bear.”

“Yeah. I—I wanna make you proud. And I’m gonna.”

“You already have, Magnus. It’s—I’ll see you soon.”

That was the last time he saw his mother.

_vii._

He sits in his quarters alone for the first twenty four hours, and he punches a dent in the wall between himself and Lucretia. Taako checks in, doesn’t say anything, and then Merle.

He comes out in his sunglasses, smiling as wide as he can, and his face stings from it.

__________________________________________

_act two: protector_

_from the libretto of_ Seven Birds _, a rock musical adaptation of the Century from lyricist Kenneth Windtow, described by the Neverwinter Oracle as being “unbearably long.”:_

DAVENPORT:  
We need to assign roles for this mission, and you’re—you’re not co-operating!

MAGNUS:  
I don’t know what the  point of me is. I can’t do magic. All I do is swing an axe, and—why don’t you understand this?

**[#17: SECURITY]**

THE PLAN IS GONE  
THE SUNS’VE SET; THE MISSION’S OVER,  
AND ALL ALONG  
THERE WAS NO BACKUP PLAN—  
NO PURPOSE FOR MY SONG!

_________________________________________

_i._

He wakes up in his fifth year of this time loop stitch, and Lup throws herself into a hug over him. She’d seen him die, he knows, killed by a ethereal guardian of the last planet’s only city. It was almost painless, and it saved the rest of the team’s life—they guard needed a sacrifice! And he’d already died once before, so it wasn’t too bad. But he remembers—she always makes jokes about how young he and Lucretia are. Or. How young they look. He’s technically twenty-five now, which seems wrong. He still feels twenty.

He’s the only one to have died so far, at all. And he’s done it twice. Barry keeps asking him what it feels like, because Barry is Barry is Barry. And he answers, best he can: it feels like bruises, and then it feels like nothing. A hammer to the chest, no reflex. Lucretia calls that poetic, probably joking, and Taako calls him overdramatic, and Merle calls him son and cracks a joke, and Cap’n’port just looks plain old worried. 

These are the people who lend him strength. He’s lost a lot, but he’s glad he’s found a new family, and with both death, he’s sad to lose this one, too.

They recover the Light easy this time around. It falls into a major city, and the leaders _totally get_ that if Davenport already had dibs on this giant orb of light. Which is weird, but, look, they’ll roll with it. Apparently, recovering the Light had been difficult even with Magnus getting them into the city.

“Fight squad night on the town. It’s tonight,” Lup says, on what Magnus thinks is this planet’s equivalent of a Tuesday—a promise from last year. They’re the frontline gang, for if shit breaks bad; Lup’s all damage and Magnus is all defense. And they’ve _bonded_ —everyone’s bonded, but he and Lup get along like a brick shithouse on fire. He nods—they’ve been here a week, now, and it’s gotten _boring_. It’s too chilled out here. Lup’s heard good things about the party scene, and Magnus trusts Lup to know a good party more than he trusts himself. He’s done some astoundingly dumb shit in his five years attending ship parties, and Lup wants to show him _more_ , because while she may not have the 1,999 party points that Merle claims to possess, she and Magnus are on about the same wavelength. And if it means he can avoid more conversations about self-preservation, he’ll take it. 

“Fucked up, right?” she says, in the corner of some too-bright club that seems a little bit too theatrical for Magnus’ taste.

“How d’you mean?”

“We’re just—y’know, I wanted to leave home so badly, right? Taako and I didn’t have anything, didn’t have anybody, ‘cept each other, and then—bam. Here I am.”

A half-elf boy waves at the both of them. “Don’t wanna dance,” Lup says, “Legs are tired from the workout—thanks, by the way, for—“

“We gotta stay in shape, Lup! Top of our game,” and laughs as she punches his arm, still sore from an impulse tattoo that’ll go away next year, “I’m not—not gonna dance, at least now.”

“Ah, he’s cute, though. Looks your type.”

“What’s my type? I haven’t dated anybody since I met you.”

“Uhhh. Can kick your ass? You’re into smiles and laughs and shit. And you—I read your file and that shit said _Lawful Good—_ and sidenote, Lucretia’s said _Chaotic Neutral,_ which we gotta unpack later, collectively, okay?—and you have a thing for _rebellious types_. I thought it was just cuz you drifted in the same circles, but—alas. You’re a loser after all.”

“I don’t like—like, cops, or whatever? I just—I value justice and equality, and all that shit, and—“

“Wow, what _bold_ political praxis—“

“Hey, fuck you!”

Lup smiles at him, even as he’s getting a little bit too mad and a little bit too into defending himself. And he knows she’s joking, he’s just easy to egg on and provoke. He’s used to her by now.

A fight breaks out, and finally, this is his type of place. He and Lup rush in, try to drag the parties apart. One of them stops when they realize, “Hey, it’s the visitors!” And there’s cheering, and somebody buys them drinks all night. They get back to the ship early morning, and Magnus did end up dancing with a half-elf girl who kissed his neck in that one particular way, which Lup is _still_ making fun of him about. She starts brewing coffee, because, in the eternal words of Lup and Magnus, “Fuck sleep.”

“You wanna—y’know. While we wait for our team’s _singular other_ early riser so that we can make fun of her for her birthday. Have a pancake party, or whatever? Paint each other’s nails and gossip?”

“I haven’t painted my nails since I was, like—ten.”

“Well, do you want to?”

“I mean, it’ll look cool, because—I always look cool, so hell yeah, but you might need to Mage Hand your own ‘cuz I’m clumsy.”

“You got steady hands, buddy, don’t put yourself down too much.”

“I did my mom’s a couple’a times—“

“Oh my _God,_ you’re Healer Kiv’s kid! That’s where I know you!“

“Holy shit, it took you longer than it took _me?”_

“I was like—at launch, I was like, God, considering she’s the only parent here, Magnus’ mom is pretty—“

“Taako didn’t tell you? He told _me_! Shit!”

“He was being an asshole. He and Lucretia probably have money on it.”

Lup summons out a basket of paints clearly labelled _TAAKO’S_ , and offers Magnus his choice of color. He opts for a bright yellow, and Lup goes for her standard black, and Magnus accidentally ruins his right hand when Lucretia walks out mid-drying and he gives her the now traditional “You’re Twenty!” handshake, which they made up when they were in incredibly bad places during the first cycle. It grows increasingly more complex with each year, and he can see the cogs turning in Lup’s brain as she tries and fails to memorize it.

“How was tough team’s night out?”

“Delightful. Magnus almost brought a girl home.”

“Gross.”

He doesn’t think he’ll let himself die, this cycle.

_ii._

But see, the thing is, he tends to die _a lot_. Enough so that it’s almost a solid fifty-fifty Magnus Dies-Magnus Lives ratio by cycle twenty-eight, when he’s clocked up thirteen.

(There’s a spreadsheet in Lucretia’s files, which he goes through when he wants to catch up on shit he’s missed: _cycle1, aprxday365—Hunger. cycle4, aprxday23—sacrifice. cycle8, aprxday141—illness. cycle9, aprxday58—disappeared. will not explain. contact merle? cycle11, aprxday301—assassinated. cycle13, aprxday201—took shot intended for me. cycle16, aprxday9—reaper. cycle18, aprxday338—took shot intended for taako. cycle20, aprxday364—backflipped into volcano on “dare.” (wanted to see if lava felt nice once submerged. defin. answer is no.). cycle22, aprxday 37. another mysterious. bring up therapy?? not my place??, Cycle 24, Approximately day 71, last to succumb to human-targeted viral warfare. cycle25, aprxday365, finally tried to eat the LoC. cycle27, aprxday109, “mystery.” will send captain to have this convo)_

And he’s dreading that convo, apparently, because Taako has called him “avoidant,” and that’s fucking Taako. His death last cycle was embarrassing, and Lucretia has no right to worry about him. He should be worrying about her. And he is. Because she _also_ died last cycle, later on, and she’s not talking about it with him either, so, hah.

“Stop dying, Burnsides,” says the Captain, in the kitchen, on the day Magnus is least expecting it. Lup is off on a mission, and Magnus _knows s_ he hid those fancy-ass cookies _somewhere_ , and, look, if he can’t find them, no one can. Magnus takes his headphones off.

“If I say no, what are you gonna do to stop me?”

“Forbid you from going on missions. Make you sit through Merle Therapy. Magnus, I—I brought you onto the Institute for a reason.”

“Meat shield?” he offers.

“The twins are getting into you more than you let on. Nah, I hired you cuz I like—scrap. And trouble. And the like. And you’ve proven yourself a damn good organizer, when you have the passion, all those revolutions and fights. Magnus. You have every right to be—to be sad, and stressed, Burnsides. Fuck me if I’m not a whole three-foot-two of rage, right now. But. We gotta keep working.”

“I’ve spent more time on this ship than I did at home. You—you know that, right? Me and Lucretia, the majority of our lives have been—this. Barry’s coming up on that in a couple’a years, too. And it’s—I don’t wanna be—I feel—I don’t think you can blame me for dying if it’s the way I can feel like I’m human, for God’s sakes—“

“There are other ways to feel—“

“You wouldn’t know! You had a hundred and seventeen years before this whole mess. Merle and the twins had _more_ , and we’re just—“

“I know, kid. I don’t—you don’t have to die, Burnsides. It’s not—you wanna die for something? Live for it instead. Live to be human. Live for the team. Live for your fuckin’ self, all I care, just—I need you to promise me.”

Magnus sighs. He really, really likes Davenport, likes Merle, because, per Lucretia, Magnus latches onto potential father figures like a damned burr on wool. But he doesn’t _want_ to listen to them, either, because he’s Magnus, and because, also per Lucretia, he cannot be controlled by the whims of others.

Magnus finds the cookies, shoves one in his mouth, offers one to Davenport.

“This isn’t how Merle told me I should talk to you about this. He gave me a damned pamphlet.”

“You two are so domestic. Cookie?” He takes a second one for himself.

“It doesn’t really feel appropriate for the tone of this—“

Through a mouthful, “They got cinnamon, though.”

Davenport takes a cookie, bites at it weakly. “I just want you to know,” nibble, “That—we can’t lose you. Not just because you’re our meat shield. But—the bond engine’s a little bit. Weaker, y’know? You keep spirits up,” nibble.

“It’s not—I’m not dying because I want to hurt you.”

“I know that, kid, it’s just—“

He sighs. wraps his tail around Magnus’ ankle, and drags him to the blue couch, and sits him down.

“I left home when I was young. Ran away because I felt suffocated by Burrows, ended up where I ended up because people took me in and stopped me from risking my life. I was studying at the Institute, but I wanted to join the Wars, back in the day. Wanted to prove myself, and somebody who’d just gotten back stopped me. Said he’d teach me how to fight if I didn’t get myself killed.”

“And that person was my grandpa, yeah, I—I know I don’t even deserve to be here, and—“

He looks concerned, “I had no voice in the selection process, Magnus. I wasn’t in admissions, I just—you think you got on this ship because I missed my mentor?”

Magnus blinks.

“A little bit.”

“Okay, no, Magnus, if that’s what this is about—“

“You said the best and brightest. That’s this team, and I’m not the best or brightest at anything except swingin’ an axe and—“

Lucretia stumbles out of a compartment, all of the sudden. She lands on her face, followed immediately by Taako, and then Merle, who was on one of their shoulders. Probably Lucretia’s.

Davenport gives them a hard stare, and Lucretia runs out quickly, a little bit ashamed, and then comes back to pull the other two with her.

“Continue?”

“I’m not the best at what I do. I’m here because of luck, everybody else—those three, somehow—are here for skill. And I think that—look, protecting is what I do. I’ll come back. I’m not a genius, I can’t even do magic, and if somebody’s gotta die—“

“Half of your deaths were preventible. Three of them, you don’t even talk about—one came after Barry and Lup died, one after Taako’s de-magicking experience, and last cycle, for—when Lucretia got hurt. It’s not fair to any of us, especially not you. And Magnus, look, it’s just like you said—you’re the only weapon we need.”

“If you say the weapon was inside me all along and also, that it’s love—“

“It is, but continue.”

Magnus smiles, a little bit, and Davenport looks at him, intense as always. Magnus feels like he is sixteen and sat at a piano again, but now, the funeral is his and the funeral is Davenport’s and the funeral is Taako’s and Lucretia’s and Merle’s and Barry’s and Lup’s. 

(He’s written down old music in Lucretia’s journals. She thanks him for it. Someone always ends up singing a piece of it at funerals).

Loss is pain without reflex, bruises touched and touched and touched.

“We need you to protect us, yeah, kid, but we’re also here to protect you.”

_iii._

Magnus is seven years into his streak of Not Dying when it becomes evident that his Guy Who Dies A Lot title is about to be usurped. For the past five years, Merle has been murdered. Every cycle—often towards the beginning, getting sooner and sooner each year, he goes into Parley. Straws are drawn for who should Have A Talk With Him, because in spite of the strength of their Bonds, they are _hideously_ bad at communicating. Magnus draws short, and it’s agreed that as the former Guy Who Dies A Lot, he is well-suited to have this talk, but, see, here’s the thing, despite probably being the two most open people on the team, he and Merle are definitely going to get off topic in two seconds, flat.

But, hey, he drew the short straw. They regenerate into year thirty-five, and Magnus immediately scoops Merle into his arms and sets him down in the Team Human Official Blanket Fort Zone (est. cycle thirty-one). It’s a comfy area, an easy place to hide snacks or listen to music that Taako and Lup call intolerable or to discuss mortality, because humans do that, and they want to feel like themselves. Merle is sat on a large, dog shaped pillow that Lucretia had bought Magnus last cycle for his birthday.

“Look,” he says, and he feels fairly empowered by Merle’s middle fingers, “I’m all about beating the Hunger. Merle, I—I’m all about recon. You know this. I know this.”

“Yeah?”

“Merle, I—you gotta wait until the end of the year to do this. It’s fucking all of us up. Like—it’s fucking me and Taako up. We gotta get Tres Horny Boys back together. We—literally, last year, I learned conjuration. I can’t do it, but I know _how_ to now. Taako _worked out_. Like, those two things alone—does that explain the weird-ass situation we’re in?”

“Was he, like, liftin’ dumbbells, or—“

“No, no, like, he’s _super_ dextrous now. He’s my best friend, I’ve _never_ seen him do this before. And it’s because you’re throwing us—this team—into imbalance. Imbalance is Lucretia’s word. And, also, I learned _tarot_ last cycle. To run _cons_ , Merle. I am disgracing my family’s name, now. Because you have thrown us off of our rhythms.”

“Did you guys draw _straws_ for me?” Merle says in his fake-teary voice.

“Aw, come on, you know that we care. We care more than the Hunger!”

“John. John’s the one I’m talking to, not the whole thing.”

“Don’t personify him.”

“You _just_ did. Pronouns, kiddo.”

Magnus doesn’t get it. He and Barry get flack, sometimes, from the rest of the crew for being the only ones with half-decent family lives back home, but—family means _protecting,_ and protecting means _staying_ —that’s what he’s decided, at least—and this team is a family. Merle calls Magnus his kid, for gods’ sake.

“I don’t—why are you walking out on us?”

“I’m trying to help us. This is what I can do to help, so I’m gonna do it.”

“You are _not_ allowed to steal my insecurities from me, Merle, that’s—that’s not fair.”

“We’re all fucked up, Maggie, you—you know this. Gotta do our part.”

“And a big part of our part is staying together.”

“He asked about you, this time, y’know. Asked if we had defenses. I said we had Magnus. Andhe thought you were a machine, or something.” Magnus laughs at that.

“Would be cool if I work a robit, though.”

“You had that mechanical arm cycle ten.”

“Yeah, yeah. What did you—“

“I said you were family, cuz y’are.”

He gets distracted, “Do you think we’ll—when all of this is over. Do you think we can have families? Like, extended. From the seven of us. Like, you and Cap could adopt little tiny kids or something, and Barry and Lup could get married and maybe I could find—“

“You’re a sap. Too sappy for your own good.”

“You love sap.”

“I dunno if I’d be a great dad. I got nature and the six of you to watch after, already”

“So do it, then. You don’t gotta—Merle, we make fun of you, but we need you over here. Otherwise, we’re relying on Lucretia and Barry to heal us, and, uh—look, you’re not the world’s best healer, but—we need you on this side of the fight.”

Merle looks at him, cut on his forehead fresh as it always is at the beginning of the year. Magnus wants to wrap it, to run the concussions test—he always does, a habit he didn’t know he’d inherited until he found himself freaking out over Lucretia’s typical injury of Journal-Falling-On-Head-From-Shelf-Because-Someone-Messed-Up-The-Specific-Placement-Of-Each-Book- _Barry_. He’s becoming his mother, and he’s fine with that. He’s older than she was when she—didn’t die, was lost. That fucks him up, a little bit.

He notices that he’s crying. He doesn’t try to stop it like he used to.

“I never had a dad,” Magnus says, out of nowhere, just as Merle says, “I’ll wait till month eleven.”

There’s a beat of silence, a pregnant pause, and Merle offers Magnus a pat on the shoulder and a, “Maggie, you have one right here.”

_iv._

He’s taken to carving as well as he’s taken to anything, and he’s taken to Fisher even better than that. He likes being in charge of something, and he likes that he can sing to them, play with them. He takes them into his room, from time to time, when they’re willing to spend a night outside of the water, which is a couple of times a week. And it’s better there for when they’re flighty than Lucretia’s room, because they did eat what the group believes is Barry’s eyeglass prescription, and the vision test ritual is apparently, “real hit or miss.”

Tonight is one of those nights, just him, Fisher, and his grandfather’s knife on rosewood. He’s working on a bear, right now, because he’s trying to branch out, two years in. It’s late, but he’s always been a little bit of an insomniac, and he’s found that carving actually helps as much as running does.

There’s a knock, which means it’s Barry. “Come in,” he says, and Fisher trills a little bit, a soft B flat. Barry pets their bell awkwardly, still unsure as to how to interact with them.

“Hey, Magnus.”

“You good?”

“Trouble sleepin’.”

“Me and Lucretia, too. She thinks it’s another human issue.”

“ _Or_ we’re just a deeply fucked up group.”

Magnus forces a laugh.

“You wanna help me go over this new ritual I’m workin’ on? Your wheelhouse.”

Barry’s talked about this before. It manifests bonds. Detect Magic plus Emotions plus True Seeing, with a little bit of Find the Path. He doesn’t recognize a solid three quarters of the runes, but Barry’s missing the personal elements, and that’s gonna be _vital_ to this. Day one stuff. Barry helped build the engine, for crying out loud. 

“Future tense, there, for the affection symbol,” Barry says, scraping the wood shavings that have fallen out of Magnus’ hair off of his parchment. Magnus changes his handwriting, and teases Barry about it. “It’s not unfaithfulness. It’s just—hope that things last. And it can tell you, and Lucretia, and Taako, like—if you have bonds there triggered by the future tense, that’s a pretty sure sign of—“

“You gotta do the planar physics bit there, because I don’t know how the _fuck_ to cross that over.”

And he does, and he works it out, and he says, “You wanna test it?” with that big-ass Barry grin that he always has when he’s excited.

“Uh, sure?”

“Nah, you do the honors.”

“I literally can’t.”

“Oh. Shit. Sorry. Uh.”

Barry mutters an incantation, pulls a couple hairs from Magnus’ head, which, like, he could’ve just spit or bled or something, and then, confirms Magnus’ theory by spitting into the circle he’s formed. And then, something happens. Magnus feels tiny strings pulling at him in millions of directions, and then he feels nothing at all, but he can see those strings.

“Nice,” says Barry, holding up a glowing yellow string, “Uh, so—“ he closes his eyes, and a bright red string manifests from his hand and goes through the wall. “Lup,” he nods. “You wanna test the, uh, the—the future tense?”

And he does, and suddenly, the pulling feeling is back, and it’s intense, centered in his chest, and it pulls, and it pulls, and he is thrown against the wall, and, “Holy shit.”  
“Romantic love, hey. Cool. Good on you, man—I should add in some impact softener for interplanar bonds. Do me a favor and try and not think about _any_ hypothetical bonds.”  
Magnus smiles, a little bit dumbly, at the idea of a future—kids and a partner and dogs and and and. And he thinks he might have a concussion, but, oops. It’s okay, because he’s gonna be in love like _that—_ all reflex, all strong—some day. And it might take centuries, but love like that’s _gotta_ be there for more than just a little while.

He then remembers, oh yeah, he probably has a concussion.

“Healing?”

“Ritual took all my spell slots.”

“Fucker.”

“I’ll try it again in the morning, have Lup run it or something, but, uh. Cool, right?”

“Yeah.”

Magnus leans back into Fisher, who sings at him like that’ll help his head. And it does, a little bit, and he cuddles into them like the big puppy that they are. Barry smiles at the image, and Magnus wishes that he hadn’t broken his camera fifteen cycles ago, but, look, he’s not gonna be the one to wake Lucretia up from her first restful night of the cycle. He gets back to his carving, sings along to the songs Barry’s humming at the two of them. He gets half the lyrics wrong, but it’s songs from Home, and that’s what matters.

Home was only ever called Home, is the thing; their people were not very creative with names. The suns were called Sun I and Sun II, and the Sea was called the Sea, and so on, so forth. Lucretia says it’ll make them sound old-fashioned, wherever they end up, but Magnus has good money on their final destination just being called “Planet,” just so she’d be pissed off.

He decides to keep the bear’s eyes closed.

“Magnus, do you ever—wish you were—“

“Yeah. A lot of the time. And I’m okay with it! I know that it’s not something _wrong_ with me, or whatever, it’s just—you guys can,like, fly and kill people with fire and make giant shields and talk to animals and I’m just—me. And that’s fine! I’m a pretty cool dude, but, uh.”

“Sorry if that was a bummer.”

“No, it’s okay, you’re cool.”

Fisher sings, and Barry slowly falls asleep on Magnus’ rug, and Magnus doesn’t sleep at all. It’s not the planet induced insomnia that keeps him up, he doesn’t think, because this feels _good_. This feels like a confirmation of an ending that he’s been wanting.

Magnus knows what loss feels too well, but someday, he’s gonna find the opposite feeling in his chest, and now, he’s gonna start chasing it.

_v._

There’s an agreement inherent to the Talking About Feelings clause to the Starblaster’s rules that if your sibling is on board, you’re, barring special circumstances, in charge of initiating Important Conversations. When this clause was added on, Magnus was immediately okay with it, but then he remembered that he and Lucretia drunkenly adopted each other in cycle ten, which means that he is one of the four people thrown under the bus by this agreement.

But this year, he _wants_ to have that conversation, because she’s so, so different now. General consensus is that it’s plain old trauma. And Magnus actually _liked_ last cycle—he got to yell at despots about unjust practices and go through the unique sensation of having his body calcify completely, only to survive. But Lucretia went through hell, and she needs to talk about it, and she won’t. And that’s fair, but—she should trust him, should trust the people on the ship, and she just doesn’t anymore. He wants to surprise her—he wakes up earlier than usual to grab the scones he and Taako made last night (he got _Taako_ to give him _baking lessons_ , finally, after the ‘ten years of no kitchen crimes’ promise) and brew that fancy coffee that tasted like cherries that she’d bought a few cycles back, but he’s immediately confronted by two glowing white circles.

He jumps—and then, he flicks the lights on, and it’s _her._ So he can’t give himself a pre-emotions-chat pep talk. She’s staring at him like he’s a monster, standing up carefully as she deactivates the darkvision charm on her glasses. He shakes his head, sits down next to where she had just been, and she joins him, doesn’t say anything. He hugs her, and for the first time all week, she doesn’t flinch. She just starts weeping. He keeps hugging, and she latches onto his shoulders.

“I’m not—I’m really proud of you,” he says, and it’s all he can say. “You did _so_ well.”

“They were _terrible_ , Magnus, they—well. They killed you, so I suppose you already knew that, but. I don’t know how to explain the—the suffering they put people on the outside through. We’ve been doing this so long; I’ve been following tragic stories for _so_ long, and I’ve never seen anything close to this. You would’ve—I’m glad you didn’t have to see it.”

“You shouldn’t have had to, though.”

“Nobody should have. I’m glad that the planet burned, Magnus. I don’t want to—I know it sounds _terrible_ , but the lives of the people were so much worse than death. They said as much, and—I cast a Zone of Truth, Magnus, and they weren’t lying. As someone who’s died before, I could tell they weren’t lying.”

“Did you ever—go into the city? Did you—“

“I found your bodies. I drew them. If you want to see. A—a young woman in the court was— _persuaded_ —“

“So you _are_ a bard!” Lucretia glares at the stereotype, but shakes her head.

“I may not seduce _a lot_ of people, but I can do it damn well.”

That’s the first real laugh he’s gotten out of her. He grins.

“She told me what had—what had happened. To the six of you. And it made me sick, Magnus. I ran out of the city—that’s—selfish as it may seem, that’s when I stopped looking for the Light. I want to be able to save these worlds, even though this one was so. Cruel. Unkind. And I just—I saw Lup’s face. She died smiling. Did you know that? Everybody else but you died smiling.”

“Why were they—we were _dying_ —“

“They were _proud_ , you absolute motherfucker.”

“Ah.”

“But I saw Lup and—she’s so strong and so—“

“Okay, so we’ve got you pining hopelessly again, that’s a step to recovery.”

She punches his arm, and it hurts a lot more than usual. At his wince, she says, “Had to multiclass a little bit. You know how it is.” (He does. He’s taken a couple levels in rogue and ranger, in his time.)

“In _what_? Punching?”

“Took three levels in Paladin. Istus.”

“My girl,” he says, and he high-fives Lucretia. She does the same back, kind of demurely, “My goddess. I guess. My grandpa’s goddess? But she’s, like—chill. So. Eh.”

“Yes, she told me to abandon formality when we were communicating.”

“Nice.”

“Magnus, I just—I feel I’ve been... passive. All these years, I was just a supporter.”

“You’re more than that.”

“I know, logically, yes, but. I want to take direction. I want to fix this. To save us, to save everybody.”

She has an unwavering confidence, a icy bold to her tone that Magnus has only ever heard from her in battle. He remembers her all of those years ago, so small and wallflowery, so nervous and exhausted, and he wonders what that Lucretia would think of the woman he now calls his sister. He wonders what his past self would think of him. Carving wood and having friends

“I’m proud of you too, you know,” she says.

And he nods, holds her just a little bit tighter.

She shows them, later, paintings of birds from back home that she made on the days she could just be alone and with herself. Small canvasses. A bird for each of them. He complains to her about Barry getting the cool bird of prey, as a joke, but she smiles, says that his wasn’t just a magpie because of the easy nickname.

“They’re family birds; they keep small, close flocks. And they’re fighters.”

“Nerd.”

She laughs, looks at him affectionately. And she’s getting better, he thinks. They’re all getting better.

_vi._

If there is one thing to know about Taako, it’s that he absolutely does not understand the hype around dogs. He doesn’t hate them by any means; Magnus cannot envision being close to someone who hated dogs. But Taako doesn’t _get_ dogs, which is why it’s particularly notable that for the entirety of this cycle—one chock-full of dogs—Taako has followed Magnus out into one of the puppy settlements. It’s a soft area, haphazardly assembled. Which is fair, because it was assembled by slightly smarter-than-average dogs, who lack opposable thumbs and a lot of technology.

But the point is: Taako has followed Magnus into his puppy-hideout for the last seven days, and he will not acknowledge that it’s weird. Magnus can put the pieces together; he’s, per Davenport “emotionally intelligent,” and he knows that Lup went all ghosty last year, but, like—Taako shouldn’t avoid Lup by hanging with him. Taako should avoid Lup by hanging with Lucretia, who is back in her once-per-decade Pining From Afar phase _again._

“We’re gonna die for good, someday,” Taako says, and Magnus, who has an extraordinarily heavy mutt on his chest, almost bolts up before thinking better about the dog’s own mental state. He pets her gently.

“Cool?”

“Like—that’s what pisses me off about this? And—“

“This _is_ about avoiding Lup!”

“Yeah, dumbass, I’m—she’s on light duty anyway, she and Books are headed out tomorrow, and—“

“That’ll be wild.”

“She’s—uh—look, she’s glitchin’. G-liching.”

“Props on that one.”

“Yeah, not my best. And she’ll be—but part of the thing about being twins is that we’d always have somebody, right? Outcast but never alone? All that? And here I am, and she’s gonna live forever and I’m just gonna _leave_. Given, it’ll be however long this takes plus some centuries, but still. Best case scenario, I got four hundred years left. And you got, what—?”

“Uh. Eighty, at most, really.”

“ _Shit_. So you’d be dead if we’d never—“

“Cool to bring up? But honestly? Knowing me, I would’ve been dead by the time I was twenty-five. And technically, yeah, that’s what happened. But, uh. Yeah.”

“God fuckin’ bless the Hunger, then, I guess. Liiiiike. At least we can prolong the three of you suckers’—well, two, now.”

“Barry, too?”

“He hasn’t told you? I thought Team Human was—“ and Taako trails off, thinking. “Whatever. Not ol’ Taako’s biz.”

Magnus isn’t surprised, of course, that Barry would become a lich; he’s always joked about it, he might as well make it a reality. But it’s weird, right? Like—Barry’s not a secretive guy. He’s too easy to read, he and Magnus have that in common. But maybe—

“I bet Lucretia knew. She’s been weird since she and Barry and me went to that abandoned amusement park last cycle.”

“That _would_ be his best day, wouldn’t it.”

“Yeah, we fixed up the machines and shit and went _wild_. There was a fake haunted house and he was just yelling at its inaccurate zombies. I got real freaked out though. Very spider-focused. The people who lived there before were big into spiders. Zombie spiders.”

“A Magnus torture chamber.”

“You’d’a hated it too.”

“Nah, I’m cool with zombies. My sister’s one, for godssakes.”

The sighthound on Taako’s lap starts leaning into him, and he mindlessly starts scratching behind its ears. Magnus is charmed by Taako’s tiny gestures like this, his moments of gentle and soft. Magnus can be plenty soft, but he has trouble with gentle—he wishes he could be gentle. Wishes he could endear people with how much he cares. Taako is just looking at the ground, exhausted.

“She didn’t even talk to me about it until—until she had already decided. She’d made up her mind. And it just feels—fuck _me,_ I don’t wanna be—it’s just—I’m mad at her! Actively! And I don’t want it to be like this, it’s just—“

“Hey,” Magnus offers a hand, and Taako takes it, without gripping it. A dog barks, “I’ve lost my family before. And—no, no, I shouldn’t start there. Shit. And Lup’s not—she won’t leave you intentionally. She knew you’d be afraid, and she didn’t wanna scare you. Lup won’t lose her mind because she has the memory of you in there. How could you ever—so long as we’ve all got each other, we’re gonna be okay, I think.”

Taako looks at him, right in the eyes, and he stares. Magnus pushes himself up to make it a little less uncomfortable of a stare, catches the puppy on his chest into his arms. It’s tiny and scrappy, barks a little bit. It looks—familiar. He can’t place from where, right now. He’s tired.

“You think—we’re not gonna be around each other forever, Mangus. It’s not—“

“Mangus? Still?”

“It’s fun, can I—“

“No. You’re being—you’re being dramatic. And—“ oh. “When I was a kid, I got into this—this fight, right? And it was my first fight _ever_ , and it was—these kids were hitting a dog with rocks. And sticks, and spells and shit. Just for the sake of it. To seem—powerful, right? We all like feelin’ strong. And it was shaking and it was crying, and so—I stepped in, and I fought those kids, and I got. Hurt. Badly. That was the day before I met you, Taako, and it was—it was this dog. Right here.”

“Sure it’s not just a dog?”

“I’m _positive_. There’s a _bond,_ Taako, test it if you want. But my point is, no matter what, we’re always gonna have each other. Somehow, even if I’m dead and Lup’s a lich and you’re all alone. You’re _not_. We’re never gonna be alone, even if we just have our memories. And we can’t lose those.”

Taako smiles a little bit, shakes his head. “Yeah, kid,” and he grips Magnus’ hand a little bit tighter, “Yeah, I hope so.”

_vii._

Jack talks to him like he’s a twenty, which is weird. He knows he should have bigger concerns, but it’s _weird_ , being treated as twenty by people he might know forever. Because he hasn’t been twenty _in_ forever. And he hopes he knows Jack for forever, and June, who insists on piggy-back rides and likes that Magnus calls her plain old June, because that’s special, because Jack only ever calls her Junie or Junebug or Bug. She’s so, so small.

Magnus doesn’t get hot easily. Home was much hotter than Toril is, but it’s maybe a little less socially acceptable to walk around with a shirt off here, and this gulch is _so much drier_ than Home, too.

“You’re an odd duck, you know that?” Jack asks. June is asleep in her and Jack’s tent. They’d spent the sunset catching an animal entirely unique to this plane, which Magnus is now obsessed with. Fireflies, they’re called. And Jack had made tiny little June a lantern from a jar with them inside of it. And Magnus is wholly delighted by them.

“Yeah, well, I’ve, uh. Seen a lot. Lost a lot. Does that to a person.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got ya.”

Jack’s handsome. He’s got a thick beard, and he’s much bigger than Magnus is. And Magnus is a pretty big guy. Jack isn’t intimidating, though. He’s barely thirty, but he’s got a calm better fit for an older man. Magnus trusts him with his _life_ , somehow. He can hear Lucretia and Taako making fun of him in his brain when he thinks that, but, look—

Jack isn’t like Magnus. Jack doesn’t make mistakes that are worth correcting, doesn’t chase after his past. Jack is safer with this cup than anybody else in the world.

So he brings it up. 

“Jack, uh. I told you I was looking for something. When you found me, remember? And, uh. I was kinda… what’s the—I wasn’t being entirely honest. With you. I was looking to _hide_ something.”

“Must be somethin’ real important, eh?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

Davenport kept ribbing him about his Relic, which—fair. Magnus had somehow managed to invent his grandfather’s longest shot, made his own time machine, in a matter of a few years, without even possessing magical abilities. He’s not even sure how he did it, but he’s awfully proud of himself. 

He holds the cup out.

“I’m sure you’ve, uh. Heard rumors about these items that are terrifyingly powerful. They’re, like—I dunno. You were talking about the Felicity Wilds earthquake, the other day. Uh, and—look. I _maybe_ have one of those items. Right here. And I need to keep it safe. I don’t want it to be used, I don’t want it to hurt anybody, and it can do that. And I—I know we met two days ago, Jack, but I think I can trust you?”

“What can it do?”

“Change things. Fix things. All that. Lets you—it goes through your memories, and it helps you fix your fuck-ups.”

“Well. Where’d you get it?”

“Not important,” he says, feels sick to his stomach for lying.

Jack reaches out for the cup.

And Magnus lets go.

__________________________________________

_act three: revolutionary_

“He claims amnesia, though my (admittedly limited) medical intuition tells me that this is not entirely true. Regardless—my interrogations are not working very well, and I need his background if I want to maintain peace. I’ve attached what I hope is adequate payment for you to research him for me; I’ve heard tell of your lab’s investigation into divination and memory w/ one young partner of yours. […] safety of Faerûn from terror & anarchy lies in our hands.”

_-an excerpt from a letter written by Gov. D. Kalen to Dr. M. Miller._

____________________________________________

_i._

Steven welcomes him in with open arms, even if he has no idea where he’s from, no real idea as to who he is outside of a name and his own moral code, and his carpentry skills extend pretty much exclusively to animal carvings. Apparently, Steven’s wont to taking in strays, anyway, which Magnus likes. That feels right. He’s not sure why. But Magnus proves his worth, he’s good at that. He wants to be more than a stray, so he kicks ass on deliveries and beats Julia’s records on paperwork filing and he charms the _hell_ out of potential customers. He slowly gets better at chairs. Slowly, slowly, slowly.

“Y’know,” he tells Julia, as she’s working on one of her Projects—this one’s metal wings to simulate flight, if only for a few minutes, and while they’ve all failed until now, she _thinks_ this is the prototype that’ll work—and he’s Definitely Working Very Hard And Not Watching Her Be Cooler Than He Is, “I’m called the Hammer, sometimes,” because he’s trying to sound impressive.

“Is that a Rediscovered Magnus Memory or are you, like,” she doesn’t look up, “Forcing a nickname.”

“Um. The latter.”

“Cute. Y’know, I’ve done it before. Want me to help?”

That's the thing about Julia: she’s down for _whatever_. She’s known in town as a troublemaker of sorts, a rabble rouser, and Magnus can see that in hypotheticals _and_ in the way she judo flipped Red Dyethorn at Errol’s the other night, just because Red called Magnus a freak. She’s almost a foot shorter than Magnus and she can lift him high in the air—that was an experiment from their first week of knowing one another. And every time Magnus sees her, he can’t help but think that she’s _beautiful_. Not just externally, even though, duh, she is; she’s got a rugged beauty that can’t be replicated, a laugh that strings Magnus’ heart with lights, makes him feel like he’s being pulled toward her. His chest aches at the sight of her. 

He’s maybe, kind of, a little bit in love with her.

But he doesn’t really mention it, because she should make the first move. Magnus rushes in, sure, but Julia rushes in _faster_. Her tail trips him up in the mornings because of mutual clumsiness, and she’ll catch him before he even realizes he’s halfway to the ground. When he gets that blank feeling in his mind, she can take it away with a joke or an idea or a political rant. She’s cool as hell, worships the goddess of death, which is insane, and she’s just—she’s the best person Magnus has ever met in his life, he thinks.

He grows his hair out long, keeps his beard tidy, gets piercings and tattoos and anything that’ll change his body. He likes that, and he’s not sure why. He likes the feeling of permanent shifts. He likes birthdays and time passing, likes holidays he’s never heard of before, likes the idea of settling down, and he feels like that’s—somehow counter to who he was prior to all of this. He’s got a shitty memory, a brain that denies truths.

But he’s got a job, and a friend, and he’s happy enough.

Raven’s Roost is a beautiful town, but it’s cold. Julia and Steven make fun of him for it, but, look, it shouldn’t be lower than sixty-degrees _ever_ , and it’s almost always below fifty, around here, given the altitude. Steven’s teas helped him get used to the motion sickness within a week, but he never quite adjusted to the temperature.

“You’re a Neverwinter boy, I bet,” Julia says, “Dad’s gonna be disappointed, takin’ in a city boy.”

“No, no, I’m from the coast. Like, coast proper. A trade town? It was probably near Neverwinter, ‘cuz, uh—I remember a city was close by.”

“Hm. Only thing that comes to mind is Coralheart, but that’s just dwarves. Maybe you were just too damn tall, and your family kicked you out? Or, or—and hear me out, I know I’ve given you this theory before—“

“I’m not an _alien_ , Jules, that’d be stupid, and I’d know that.”

“Well, you might not! But I was talking about the changeling theory, because it’s a little more practical.”

“ _Jules_.”

_ii._

Magnus can hear whispers, sometimes, from the Waxmens’ apartment when he’s closing up shop after Steven and Julia have headed up for dinner and told him that he works too hard. It’s not just Julia and Steven’s voices. Maybe ten people, max. Shitty silencing charm—but Magnus wouldn’t know. He’s not really magically inclined. But this one was definitely cast at a too-low level in a too-low range, because Magnus can hear half of what’s going on. They’re talking about Kalen—second-term governor, the most frequent subject of Julia’s rants, and Guy Who Magnus Once Saw Order For The Arrest Of A Fourteen Year-Old, talking about his mansion, talking about his policies. They’re not _organized_ , and that bothers Magnus more than the lack of involving him. And he’s no tactical genius—like, yeah, he’s handy with an axe and he can throw a punch, but that’s about it. (He worked as a security guard for a little while, he thinks?) But he knows how to organize, somewhere in his brain. Get a group together and make them work. Put them into action.

So he climbs up the staircase, and he knocks.

“Password?” says a light voice that Magnus thinks belongs to one of Steven’s friends—Joanna?—and Magnus says his own name. 

“I just, uh, I forgot to grab groceries, and fuckin’—Kalen, raised the curfew and you _know_ how he goes after outta-towners, so, I need to grab some food; I can cook, if you want me to—“

“Let him in,” Julia says, “He’s—he’s cool. Right, dad?”

“You wanna get him involved?”

“No, he’s—he’s too easy to spot, but—“

“Your silencing charm is really bad,” he says, “No offense, but it’s really, really bad. I’m bloviating, I would like to join your dinner party please.”

“This ain’t a dinner party, Burnsides.”

“No offense, Steven, but it’s not a social movement either, and I wanna help change that.”

He’s let in, and the group stares at him—Steven and Julia, those nice ladies from next door Malena and Jo-something, Errol and Beow who run the bars, and a couple of Julia’s friends that Magnus is vaguely acquainted with—Mona and Art and Kassandra and Magnus-Wants-To-Say-It’s-Paz-But-He’s-Never-Met-Them-He’s-Just-Assuming-Based-On-Context-Clues. He waves, and he smiles, and Paz(?) elbows Kassandra and whispers something, who whispers something back, and Julia steps on Kassandra’s foot.

“My apprentice,” Steven explains, even though everybody already knows. “He’s a good boy. And apparently—and this is news to me—he knows how to put together a movement. Am I wrong, son?”

Magnus smiles, and he sits down.

Julia’s right when she says he’s noticeable, but he’s a fighter (he thinks?) not a rogue or an artificer like her, so he argues that, well, a movement needs a face, and he doesn’t have a family that Kalen can go after. He’s new to town, he’s an easy scapegoat, and he’s good with people—he invites hospitality! He can play the target, and Julia can get the real work done while Kalen’s distracted. The movement needs to grow—that’s a benefit of a leader, though. Some elf is doing a cooking show in town next week, he can grab the amplification stone while he’s grabbing his sample and start shit. Paint a big target on his back and get people interested. And Julia is worried, which makes her friends laugh, but she agrees.

The show comes around, and Julia and Magnus head there in a way that is entirely platonic and also for political reasons only. It’s a good show, too—Magnus likes the host, feels a connection to him. Julia remarks, quite simply, “his eyes are all pitch black too,” when Magnus points out the connection, “Like, no pupils.”

“Pupils?”

“Maggie, I don’t have them, but I know that humans have them. The—the black dots, like, in my dad’s eyes? Elves have ‘em, too. Don’t mess with me, you _have to_ know what pupils are.”

“Can I have a volunteer from the audience?” the elf drawls, and Magnus’ hand shoots up, glad for the distraction, Julia smiles, says, “Hell yeah, derail it early.”

And he does, offers a half-conscious “Sorry Taako,” before he tastes the broth oh the soup with one hand and grabs Taako’s mic with the other—  
There’s feedback on the stone, and Magnus is taken aback both by that and by the taste of the soup. “Holy shit,” he says, “This is the best soup I’ve had in my life.” Julia glares at him, and he coughs, corrects himself, adds on, “You know what’s _the worst,_ though? These new taxes on food. Did you know that they’re only enforced at the markets frequented by our working class? If I wanted to replicate this soup at home, I doubt I could afford it. Kalen drains our pockets, and for what? Our public workers are underpaid—ask the healers and teachers! Our roads are down—look at how we’ve been cut out of the trade circuit! Look at Kalen, though, sitting pretty, having dinners with the rich and powerful. And—“

A guard walks toward Magnus, and Taako is yelling something behind him, but Magnus just feels possessed. He keeps talking, keeps shouting—talking points from the meeting, his own opinions, everything. A couple of people are clapping, hollering along.

He’s hit in the eye with a rock by one of Kalen’s hired guards, and he grins wildly. Last thing he hears as he’s dragged out of the amphitheater is, “Well, with cooking this good, we all get a little bit emotional, am I right, folks?”

_iii._

It takes eighteen months for Julia to confront Magnus about what she calls “dumbass mutual pining that neither of us will act on in spite of our shared, like, recklessness,” and that confrontation , after some making out and some almost-mean-but-not-quite jokes, inevitably leads to a night off. They’ve been keeping a low profile, recently, but Julia’s sure that they can afford a night out. 

So he takes her to the gardens, and they catch fireflies, which she says is cute of him. He gets so excited about them, is the thing. It’s sweet, she says. She tells him that she wants to make him a couple little magical fireflies that can buzz around his room,because he’s a little bit afraid of the dark. It’s not, like, spider level fear, but he gets nervous, even during the day. It feels wrong, he tells her, like the sky is missing something. And she laughs. Her laugh is so, so wonderful.

“When I was twenty-one,” she says, talking about three years ago like it’s ancient history, “I hosted a séance.”

“Blasphemy. What for?”

“Fun and blasphemy. The Raven Queen has a soft spot for rebels.”

“Goddess of order?”

“We all have our contradictions.”

“I mean, I guess.”

“There was an out-of-towner. I don’t remember much about her, but she was pretty, and she came out of nowhere. And she said she was a necromancer. And I was a rebel.”

“You’re never _not_ a rebel.”

“I brought her into the séance. She, like—told us a story about dead birds. It was fucked up. Cool imagery, but, uh—she said there was a big silver light in the sky that kept them half-alive.”

“This is _really good_ first date talk.”

“But, like—Magnus, do you—aren’t stories like that strange?”

“I mean, sometimes. I’d need to hear the whole thing.”

“Hm. I just—I wish you were from here. I wish you could’ve heard that whole thing. I wish I’d grown up with you.”

“I _am_ from here, now.”

They look up at the stars, and they eat the cookies Magnus stress-baked yesterday (recipe from the Sizzle It Up! cookbook he bought mostly out of guilt after that first stunt, but has come to rely upon. Its recipes are _curative_ , Magnus _swears),_ and they kiss, and they kiss, and they kiss. Trace each others’ scars and ask about them, and Magnus must be getting better, because he knows more than half of his.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, and she smiles.

“Same to you.”

They end up in his studio, on his (surprisingly comfortable, per Julia) bed, and they’re still kissing. She touches him, so strong, so kind, and he tries his best to make her feel as wonderful as she deserves. He feels a tugging at his chest; all reflex, all adrenaline, all love, love, love. 

Sex has never been Magnus’ forté. He’s always a little bit nervous about it, but there’s something calming about being with Julia. He could stare at her for hours, could watch her smile and laugh and come and and and for hours. She’s wonderful, he thinks. Laughs about the absurdities of what they're doing--prosthesis accidents, assumptions, poorly-timed jokes. A bright red string, a pounding in his chest, impact without pain.

Being with Julia is easy. He’s afraid, at first—she’d managed to stay mostly off of Kalen’s radar for most of the rebellion, running stealth missions like her life depended on it. And if she’s connected to the face, the easy target of their operation, she could get hurt. It comes up in May, a week after they’ve started whatever this is.

“I gotta protect you too, Mag. You can’t be the only martyr.”

“If I die, though, it’s—I’ll get—I won’t be gone. And you won’t—“

“You’re not making any sense.”

“I’ll get better.”

“From _dying_? Hon’, I’m tough. I can handle it. Most’a Kalen’s supporters in town think I’m trouble anyway.”

“Yeah, but you’re good trouble.”

“You’re good trouble too.”

She tucks a sprig of lavender behind his ear. He doesn’t even remember what he was talking about. He squints, shakes his head, stares at her.

He won’t be a martyr, not yet. Right now, he has somebody to keep alive, somebody to live for.

_iv._

Kalen does not have him jailed, this time. Magnus had joined Julia on a stealth mission, wherein he had effectively Fantasy-Rude-Goldberg-Machined the destruction of Kalen’s arms collection. And everyone else had gotten out just fine. He’d made sure of that.

Kalen walked in to see Magnus, alone, smiling awkwardly.

“Do you have better clothes than those?”

Magnus blinks, dumbly. Kalen pulls him up.  
“Magnus, I’d love to talk over dinner. I think that we can come to some kind of agreement, don’t you?”

Kalen has interrogated Magnus before. Has tortured Magnus, has forced him into telling truths he does not want to tell. (Zone of Truth, Kalen remarked, once, functions oddly on Magnus. Magnus compulsively speaks. He does not have to, but he always does). Somehow, all of that seems infinitely easier than dinner, one on one. But he knows that he’s cornered. That this is something he’ll have to do.

Kalen draws Magnus a bath, lays out nice, too-expensive clothing that makes Magnus’ skin itch. He makes himself look presentable, like the people at the parties he’s snuck into. Ties his hair back, practices his expressions, practices his wisdom-saving.

He walks out, tries to look angry. Diplomatic. Kalen is maybe twenty-five years older than Magnus—fifty, then. He’s human, and he’s tall. Thin, pale, hair cut short, an early greying red. His eyes are too light, but Magnus thinks that of most eyes. He’s standing in front of a table, candles lit and dishes set out, but he stays standing. He has two wine glasses, a bottle of red levitating by his shoulder.

He takes a few steps forward, stops. “Magnus, I have a proposition for you.”

Firmly, “I don’t accept.”

“Now, let’s hold on a second, alright? It’s plenty appealing. Wine?”

“Of course.”

He doesn’t take a sip, even after the toast.

“An old friend of mine happens to have an explanation to your little… memory issue. And she says that if you play your cards right, she could get you a solution, too.”

“And why does this concern you?”

“I mean, I’m about as curious as anyone as to why an amnesiac stranger who effectively _fell_ from the _sky_ has started trying to turn my constituents against me, particularly in such a violent matter. And if you desist from that violence, well—you need a life to go back to, after, don’t you? If you can quell your, uh. Little fight, I can help you.”

“I have a life here, Kalen.”

“Do you? You have a job, you have a woman, but are you _happy_? You’re a man with great military potential, Magnus. Back when I worked under Lord Orion of Septrefen, he was always complaining about how he didn’t have a solid military advisor—and I know that the province still lacks one. With your memory and a job that will keep you fed and—“

“What’s wrong with woodworking?”

“Well, it’s—Magnus, it’s _beneath_ you. You’ve given me a run for my money, politically, and, well—I’m a fairly experienced man.”

“Good thing I’m not a politician, then.”

Kalen’s hand twitches. Magnus gives a powerful glare that he didn’t think he was capable of giving.

“I could kill you right here and now, Magnus. You and I both know it. You’re defenseless. And your girl, back home, do you think she’s even noticed your gone, yet?”

(She saw him get captured. He still doesn’t know it’s her, he still can’t tell it’s her that’s been the source of all of this. He’s proud. She’s a damn good rogue.)

“I would happily die for her safety. I would happily die to get rid of men like _you_.”

Kalen takes a sip of his wine, and his brows furrow. He’s yet to cast anything—he’ll usually have used some sort of enchantment, by this point, but Magnus’ mind is perfectly clear. He doesn’t trust this situation. Glances at every window and door in his periphery, figures out the impact he’d need to break through them. People—Julia, mostly—ask him why he seems so battle ready; he’s barely grown, and he’s too skilled a woodcarver to not have prior experience in _that._ And he genuinely isn’t sure. He doesn’t think he _wants_ to know.

“I’m assuming your friend is anonymous?”

“She’d prefer that, yes. Says that she doesn’t want you to now that it was her who brought you back. Apparently, whoever she’s been… seeing—a young thing, like yourself—has some prior connection to you.”

Magnus shakes his head.

“All due respect—and, uh. That’s none of it. Because I don’t respect you. But I don’t need a past. I—I have a good present right now. And it’ll be an even better one with you gone.”

He smashes his wine glass against his arm, lets the familiar sting of cuts be overpowered by his gut instincts. Pointing the glass’ remains at Kalen’s throat, he backs out, and he leaves without a damned issue.

He’s wrapping his wounds, later, in the living room of the apartment— _home_ —with Julia by his side. She keeps talking about a strategy where Magnus takes the deal but acts as a spy, or where someone can Zone of Truth Kalen into finding his source, or—

“Julia, I—I don’t want it. What if I was a politician or a—a warmongerer, or something? What if I was _terrible_? What if, in remembering, I become something like him? That sounds like—like, that’s the nightmare scenario, Jules. And he treated it like truth.”

“Kalen wants to inspire that fear in you. Which is why you should take the cure, prove him wrong.”

“I don’t want to prove him right, either.”

“We’re not our pasts.”

“But if I have family—they might be like that. I might have, like—trauma, or—or, like, bonds that can’t be broken. What if I’m worse than him? What if my family is worse than him?”

“I doubt that you’d be yourself now if you were anything like him as—what, a twenty-year old?”

“Yeah. I’m just—I’m afraid, Jules.”

“I understand, but—if you have a family, Magpie, and if they’re _good_ , I’d like them to—I’d like them to come to our wedding.”

It’s not a surprise. They’ve been together two and a half years, by now, and Magnus and she are both interested in settling down. But they’ve never said it concretely, before now, and Magnus smiles so wide it might tear him open. She—so casually, takes his still-bloodied arm and slips a winding black ring around his finger. He’s not done treating the wound, but he doesn’t care. He’s already kissing her, already wrapped around her finger and crying, and she’s laughing at him for being a sap, which he is, and it’s perfect. The fire crackles.

“After we win,” she tells him, “We’re gonna get married, and we’re gonna have a family. We can adopt dogs, we can run the shop—“

“Get old together,” he says, and he smiles, “God, I wanna get so old with you. Like. Statistically speaking, we’ll be dead before forty, just, like—knowing us, and knowing who we are, but, like—even then, we’ll get old together in the Astral Plane.”

“I mean, not how the Astral Plane works, really, but—“

“I’m goofing, Julia.”

“I know.” 

She lays her head on his shoulder, and he feels the familiar weight of bone on his cheek from her horn. A fire lights the room, keeps them warm, but Magnus—always cold, Magnus—doesn’t even think he needs it, when he has this.

He wakes up next to her the next morning, and he knows that they’re gonna win, now. He knows it. Karen holds his past, sure, but he has a present, and he has a future, and they are both so, so bright. He doesn’t need anything else.

_v._

The final battle goes by in flashes, for Magnus.

Three A.M. He and Julia head to the top of Queen’s Peak, scouting.

Kalen’s guards spot them. Julia manages to get them away, but sustains an arm injury from an arrow

Kissing Julia as they sort out their distance weapons—him with a crossbow and handaxes, her with knives and explosives. She tells a joke; he feigns tripping and falling off of the peak.

Arrows shot at them. Julia dodges, Magnus is hit repeatedly. He takes it. That’s his gig.

Word from Paz. Steven is captured.

Fire in the sky at sunrise. Still not light enough for Magnus. 

Climbing down the peak—raiding the governor’s mansion. Solo mission. Battleaxe, prayer to the Raven Queen—he’s no believer, but Julia is, so hopefully he’s in Her favor—and a helluva lot of hope. He doesn’t want to kill. He doesn’t want to kill.

These are people who have tortured him. His friends. His _wife_ —not technically, but almost. After today. Hopefully. They deserve his wrath. For all he has failed to protect his people, they deserve his wrath.

But he has seen too much death in his life to let himself kill.

So he leaves them incapacitated. Unconscious. He’ll get them out of here.

Julia wants Kalen dead.

Mona calls him. Julia’s injured. They might have to amputate her other leg. She’s with their healers now.

He’s distracted—caught by Kalen’s men. Cut down his face; scar-worthy. Left eye goes blurry, hurts and hurts and hurts, but he shrugs it away. He’s got things to do. He can hurt later. If he dies, he’ll come back, it’s fine. His arm breaks? It’s fine. The year’s almost over, it’s nearly July. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine.

Kalen, alone. Tall. Short, grey-red hair. Elemental sword versus axe. Magnus is struck down.

Something from above, floating:

Julia's grinning. She’s dropped into the room, clearly in pain, but she’s holding a knife to Kalen’s throat.

“Surrender,” she says, and he does, and then, pushing the knife closer, “I don’t accept.”

“Listen,” he says, heaving, “I will leave your town alone. I will. And I’ll vacate, and I’ll make sure no one speaks of my time here. I’ll erase my damned legacy. Let me go.”

Julia looks at Magnus. Looks at Kalen.

“I don’t want to become him,” is all Magnus says.

“I don’t kill without need. You will die when it’s not in question, Kalen. If you ever come here again, know that we will hunt you down. And I promise you, I am _not_ a woman who shows mercy when betrayed.”

“I have a name for you. I think it will convince you.”

And Kalen whispers three syllables into Julia’s ear. She nods.

And she lets him go, drags her knives down his unarmored chest. He’ll live, but it’ll hurt. That’s what he deserves.

So they spare him.

They walk home to an almost-hopeful sunset. Here's the almos: Julia’s still in pain—the healers had numbed her for the amputation, but it’s wearing off slow and she’s barely used to this new metal appendage, however lifelike it may be. And Magnus is no diviner, doesn’t know anything about the nature of time, but—

Happy as he is, he feels like he’s made a mistake.

_vi._

There’s a woman at the wedding, in the evening while they’re still setting everything up, who looks nervous, so he approaches her. She doesn’t look too much like Steven or the drawings Magnus has seen of Steven’s late husband, and she’s not from town, so she might be lost.

She’s young. Maybe Magnus’ age. Taller than him, dark-skinned, light haired. She’s in a fancy crimson suit, looking around nervously as he approaches her.

“Hail and well met,” he says, a new verbal experiment because he likes sounding like he’s from here rather than wherever he’s really from. “M’the groom. Are you okay?”

“Oh. Hello. Uh. Yeah. I’m fine. Thank you. Are you… excited? For the big day?”

“More than anything,” he says, and he has to stop himself from crying for the eightieth time that day, “Can I ask, uh, how you know Julia?”

“Oh, we just—I used to commission her. And all of that.”

“Well, uh. I’m Magnus. Thank you for coming, I guess?”

“Yes. Um. I actually—I have a gift, for you. I… read your story—the revolution. Of course. And I—well. Here’s something.”

It’s a tiny box, tied with a silver string, a tiny canvass inside. “A magpie. They’re family birds—“

“And fighters, yeah. Jules uses it as a nickname.”

“Oh.” The woman gives a smile that, were it not for the occasion, Magnus would think was a grimace, “Wonderful. I—the name was sort of the main inspiration. It’s a good luck charm.”

He tucks the canvass into his pants pocket, thanks her, and goes back to figuring out music with the violinist. Julia, when she comes out—the first he’s seen her all day, beautiful as ever—approaches the woman from earlier—what was her name?—and starts talking. A former client, the woman had said. But Julia’s talk with her seems intense. Accusatory. Fighterly.

“Are you okay?” he asks her, as the ceremony’s about to begin, “I saw you talking to that old client—she seemed nice, when we talked? Are you okay?”

“She’s a… more of a friend of a friend, than a client, Mags, it’s fine. She’s having some family issues, needs support, is all.”

“Oh. Okay, then, it just seemed—“

“No, baby, it was fine. It was a really, really helpful conversation, actually.”

“Whatever you say.”

He forgets about it, as the night goes on. Cries as he gives his vows, cries harder as Julia gives hers. Neither of them are poets by any means, but goofing on his wife (his _wife!_ ) makes him emotional. She makes fun of him for crying, because she’s herself, and he cries harder, because he’s himself.

She tucks a sprig of lavender behind his ear as they dance, and the stars (dim but tolerable, now) light them all night long. Guests congratulate them. Their love shall extend, they say, beyond the Prime Material. He plays a song he remembers from home, and the crowd likes it, but does not recognize it. He doesn’t remember how he knows it. He kisses his wife; his wife holds him. They fall into bed at four in the morning, laughing and loving and _happy_.

When he wakes up, Magnus starts working on a chair, and he decides, he’ll make it smell like lavender.

_vii._

Loss feels like this, for Magnus: 

A hammer, all impact, no reflex.

Loss is a bruise on his chest.

A rope, cut, shredded, burned, without the scars to prove it was even there.

____________________________________________

_act four: fighter_

“o, to be a flightless bird/basking in false moonlight/if i/could forget i’d ever known you/t’would be a blessing”

_—stanza three of poet Imani Ornella’s classic, ‘voidfish.’_

____________________________________________

_i._

He hacks some tree stumps into comfortable-enough seats, and helps set Taako and Merle’s bedrolls up. He’s hospitable. He’s good at taking care of people, in a fight and in reality. They’ve been looking for Gundren for three days, now, and they’ve yet to have a _good_ camping experience, but here’s one, presenting itself to them.

Taako lights a fire. It’s familiar, uncomfortably so.

“I’m sorry I crashed your show that one time,” he says, and Merle tilts his head, furrows his brows.

“This numbskull took over yours truly’s program for _political reasons_.”

“I _did_ compliment your soup! By the way—“

“Nope. Taako’s not—no.”

“Okay, I—I got you. I can cook, then. Uh.”

He grabs Merle’s bag of components, starts going through it. They’ve got a, per Taako, “subpar but passable” bean soup. The sky looks as odd as it ever does, but for the first time in years, Magnus is compelled to talk about it.

Merle and Taako agree that it’s strange, though, is the thing. Merle explains it as “Ol’ Pan’s just like that sometimes, fuck if I know what’s goin’ on with him.” Taako explains it as, “I thought I was just trippin’.” Which Magnus admits, was also his theory, for a little bit.

Magnus starts singing. Taako and Merle sing along. It feels right. These are people like him, he thinks, whose worlds are just a little bit incorrect. He doesn’t say it out loud, and neither do they, but he thinks that they understand this, too. Yeah, the three of them are stupid, but they’re stupid together, even if Taako is callous and Merle’s kinda a douche. Magnus makes friends easily. He’s likable, he’s charming, he’s handy in a fight.

But he hasn’t felt a connection this intense since, well. Since what happened five years ago. He thinks that again, as Phandolin burns, and he thinks—somehow—that in seeing an echo of that event, here, a city burning because of his failures, he has entered the next phase of his life.

Then he sees the false moon, and he _knows it._

_ii._

He’s hanging out with Avi on the quad—he’s wont to that, nowadays, because Avi is nice and smart and funny and everything Magnus likes in a person. 

He knows that Avi has feelings, and, were he not himself, he might have feelings too. But he doesn’t, because he doesn’t think he should. Some people—friends, one night stands, bartenders—have told him that that’s unhealthy of him. And he knows that. And he’s working on it. But he feels like he’s cursed.

Remembering is a welcome thing, he thinks. He doesn’t remember everything, but he knows more of his childhood—knows his grandfather was a divination wizard, knows that the Grand Relics had killed Steven’s late husband, knows that he loves jellyfish. He remembers more songs, now, ones that he’d forgotten. He mentions this to Avi, and Avi is happy for him.

“All I remembered was that my old workshop got overrun by fuckin’ megacactus.”

“Did you get—cactused?”

“No, no, thankfully I was out, but my whole—like, my life’s work was just. Broken. Y’know?”

“Yeah. That, uh. That really sucks, dude.”

“Yeah, it does, but, hey. I’m here. I’m alive. Might as well make the best of that.”

“Yeah,” Magnus smiles.

“What’s the song you forgot?”

He taps out a beat, sings one of them—a romantic folk song, soft and sweet. And Avi grins at him, says, “Nice.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s good little tune. I’ve had it stuck in my head since I drank that fish’s piss.”

The quad of the moon-base is always nice. Simulated sunny weather, and Magnus feels _comfortable_ , even as Avi complains about the heat. He’s never been the most comfortable with the temperature in a room, before this base, he doesn’t think.

Avi has to launch some Regulators off to secure some group of necromancers, so he leaves, holding Magnus’ hand a moment too long. Magnus keeps laying under this tree, humming that little song. And someone joins him, humming along. He doesn’t open his eyes until the song is over, and he makes direct eye contact with his boss. She’s not in her work robes—it’s a lazy day, for the Bureau, by-and-large. She looks younger, out of the regalia, dressed in airy summer clothes with oversized glasses on her face. He assumes she usually wears contact lenses or some kind of charm, but he hasn’t seen anyone in either of those situations since before he went to Raven’s Roost.

“Magnus,” she says, as if taken aback, even if she’s been standing over him for two minutes.

“Hi, ma’am. You _also_ enjoy Fantasy—“

“Yes. Their music brings back some of my most… pleasant memories. Magnus, uh. I am very sorry to—disrupt—“

“Nah, it’s good. Unless you’re gonna send me on a mission, in which case, I’m down, but you did explicitly say today was a rest day, so I’m not tip-top physically—“

“No, no, I just wanted to… thank you. And the boys. Again for what you did on Midsummer. The information you gave me was absolutely vital, and I do not know what I would have done after that did I not have your support.”

“It’s really no problem. Do you think it was the Relics?”

“Probably,” she sighs.

“You look _really_ familiar to me.”

Too quickly, “I just have one of those faces.”

“No, you have pretty distinct features.”

She rubs her neck, laughs a little bit uncomfortably, “I usually blow that one off with a joking accusation of not having met many people with Ikhayan roots, but, well—you have those roots, too. Dammit.”

“Ikhayan?”

“My ethnic group. Yours, too, if my eyes don’t deceive me? You’ve got some, uh. Modoan, too, I’d say you’re half-and half, but, look, order a damned Fantasy Twenty-Three-And-Me and get your damn DNA stolen, I’m not going to educate you on human ethnicity.” She looks down, and then sits. Joins him on the ground. “But—Magnus, I attended your wedding. That’s—I don’t want to trigger any bad memories, but your wife and I had done some work together. This was obviously a—before I erased my identity, so the memory might be a bit fuzzy, for you.”

“Oh my God, that _was_ you, wasn’t it?” he grins, even if he kind of remembers that woman being much younger than the Director, “Uh. I still have that little canvas you gave me. It reminds me of her.”

“I’m glad. She was a good woman, Magnus. I hope you know that her death will not be in vain. Since his destruction of your town, I’ve had eyes on Mr. Kalen. He was an ally of a woman I used to… love. And he was… terrible. My partner said that his ends justified his means, but his ends had no meanings. He just seemed… cruel, Magnus. I left her because of her support of him. And I just wish—I understand why you didn’t kill him.”

“Well. I’m okay with killing now, though.”

Why’s that?”

“Because I should’ve fucking killed him. I don’t want to regret like this again.”

“I understand.”

“Yeah.”

“Magnus, so you know. I’ve lost people, too. I’m perfectly able to lend an ear to you, if you might need one. I—“

“Thank you, ma’am,” he says, and he almost means it.

He thinks that he kinda likes the Director.

_iii._

Merle is praying, which is something Merle has been doing a lot of, since Goldcliff. Magnus can guess why, but Magnus also needs something to do, and Taako is harassing Angus already, and he and Taako kind of have a No Serious Pranks At The Same Time Policy regarding the kid. Magnus has a soft spot for him, and Taako does, too. Magnus feels good playing the role of older brother, feels comfortable in it, and his fellow only child, Taako, does too. But they know Angus’ limits.  
So Magnus decides to hang out with Merle. They agreed to hang out earlier, too, so it’s cool.

Merle is praying in dwarvish, and Magnus can make out a few words—life and blossom and father and children. 

“Hey.”

Merle blinks, and then looks up.

“Maggie! Been a minute. Y’weren’t in the suite last night?”

“Uh. Yeah. I was—making a mistake?” Sleeping with a coworker with whom he has to work again in spite of his inability to have a romantic relationship. So, yeah, making a mistake. “Anyway, do you wanna have that hang-sesh we were planning on? Just because. I stole some flowers from Leon’s components garden and the black-eyed Susans would look really good in your beard, I think?”

“What the hell kinda spell requires black-eyes Susans?”

“I actually asked him, and he said they were for Davenport, which—uh— _cool_? But they complement your eyes.”

“You’re a sap, kid.”

“Yes.”

Merle lets Magnus futz with his beard, though, and lets Magnus talk about his feelings, about the situation with Avi (called Iva, because Magnus is very good at fake names), and all that. And he gives half-decent advice about it. Merle has, apparently, had many a lover, in his time, which Magnus is mildly intimidated by.

And then Merle starts talking about something.  
“Maggie, you ever want kids? I know you were married, or whatever, but, uh—“

“Yeah, I wanted kids. We were planning on adopting, cuz, well. I can’t have ‘em, obviously, and there were a lotta—“

“I don’t need the full sob story.”

“I know.” Magnus points to the NO BACKSTORY DUMPS banner hung on the wall by Taako.

“Yeah, so—saythat you had ‘em, and then you got—you got chicken, right?”

“How d’you mean?”

“You raised ‘em for as long as you could, but you realized that you’re just—shit at it. You’re barely an adult, right? You don’t know how to help them, you’re not—“

“Uh. I never had a dad, even. I just had a mom. And a grandpa. And I hardly remember the two of them. But, uh. I know that I never wanted a dad who didn’t want me.”

“Say you _wanted_ the kids, then, but couldn’t take care of ‘em. Basic insecurities.”

“This scenario just. Doesn’t apply to me, Merle. I don’t wanna know if you, like—are considering telling someone to leave their kids. That’s not something I’d do. I don’t wanna continue a cycle, y’know?”

“I know.”

Merle looks to the side. Magnus looks the other way.

He wonders if Merle notices the times he accidentally calls him “dad.”

_iv._

The Director asks him—in a very uncomfortable moment—if he started pursuing a multiclass in rogue because of Julia. He says no, and she nods, says, that this will be a benefit to the party. And, to be honest, he hadn’t even made the association until then. He mentions it to Carey, though, and she says, “Look, I’m trainin’ you in a whole other type of roguing. Skills I’m teaching you don’t work for swashbucklers. Better suited to your classics, y’know? Thief or assassin, _maybe_ trickster, but you’ll need Taako or somethin’ to teach you the spells.”

“Can’t do trickster, my body doesn’t do magic.”

Carey tilts her head in the same way people always do—they say magic is learned, not innate, but he remembers _explicitly_ being told otherwise, so. But she pushes away from it, used even at this early point in their friendship to Magnus’ eccentricities. He likes her for that. She rolls with shit in a way that absolutely nobody else normal does.

“Anyway, today was supposed to be a sparring day, but my girlfriend’s fuckin’ disaster and says that sparring with a broken arm is, uh, lemme quote her, ‘pure dumbassery,’ so ch’girl’s out. Uh. You wanna hang?”

“Don’t your legs regenerate?”

“Number one, not a lizard, number two, it’s tails.”

“Does your tail regenerate?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice. What do you wanna do for a hang sesh?”

“Uh. I dunno, actually, was hoping you’d have ideas.”

“We can bake?”

“Like, weed? You know I got fucked up lungs.”

“No, I meant with food. _But_ we can make brownies so as to avoid your lungs’ issues? Wink.”

“Nah, I got a date tonight, don’t wanna go inebriated, but cooking sounds alright?”

“Baking. Don’t make the mistake in front of Taako, he’ll get pissed. Back when—“ and he trails off. Huh. “Anyway, uh, yeah. Let’s, uh, let’s bake some fuckin’ things.”

An hour later, they’re eating the batter off of spoons, Carey flicking her tongue in and out. And she’s reassuring him, “Avi’s not mad, bud, he’s just worried about you.”

“Yeah, but, like—it’ll get _weird_.”

“Avi’s, like, the least weird dude on the planet. And you’re the weirdest—“

“Merle.”

“Second-weirdest, so I guess there’s balance, bit, uh. Just _talk to him_? He knows you’ve got romance issues.”

“How’re the proposal plans?”

“I need more fireworks.”

“I got a guy in Neverwinter.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah. Killian specifically requested orange ones, and that’s a hard color for non-evocators, and—eugh, it’s difficult.”

“Yeah, yeah. You kids are gonna end up fine, though.”

“I know. Proposal planning’s _already_ a nightmare, though—actual wedding planning’s gonna be _hell_.”

“We were chill, back in our day. But we didn’t have families that hated each other. We had. A family.”

“Yeah, yeah. Your tragic amnesia orphan backstory makes weddings a helluva lot easier, wish I had that excuse. Not the—tragic parts. Just the—no shit parents to deal with.”

“I got you.”

He steals the spoon out of Carey’s hand, and she gets angry, and all he can tell her is that she trained him well.

_v._

Magnus has not forgotten that Kalen told him he would succeed in politics. That he would succeed in politics. This drawing is a blatant reminder of that fear that’s haunted him. He swims down to try and speak more with the Voidfish, who sings at him and shows him flashes of a man in red, slammed against a wall by a glowing red rope.

He has learned by now not to ask if it’s him. The fish won’t tell him, and it doesn’t stick in his mind anyway. He likes the fish, though. He buys water-breathing tablets at Fantasy-Costco for “just a little bit more blood,” And the fish delights in his company, always, sings him songs.

Angus spots him, tonight, though, halfway through a minor anxiety attack the Voidfish is coaching him through. Magnus resurfaces to breathe air, and he chokes as he makes eye contact with the kid.

“Sir,” says Angus. Magnus can’t really do _words_ right now, so he just waves. The Voidfish picks him up, sets him down by his clothes, which he puts on—the t-shirt is backwards, but he can’t bring himself to care.

“Are you—are you okay?”

Magnus gives a thumbs up. Breathes slow.

“Did I—“

“No,” he says, and his voice is hoarse, “This is a me issue, buddy, you don’t gotta blame yourself.”

“I just—I don’t like it when you’re upset, and if I’m doing anything to make it worse.”

“No, no, no—Ango, bud, why would _you_ make it worse? I’m going through some shit, but that’s, uh—that’s a Magnus issue. You’re not here to protect me, Angus, you’re not the keeper of my emotions. You’re just a kid that I like a lot.

“Can I help?”

“Uh. Let’s go back to your room, okay? And you can tell me about Caleb Cleveland.”

“Why are you down _here_?”

“Uh. I got memory issues. The Voidfish helps. They’re very nice. G’night, buddy!” he says, to the fish, and the fish trills its three note name for him. He hurries Angus out of the door, “What’re _you_ doing down here?”

“The light in my room broke so I read down here with the Voidfish if I mess up with the Light cantrip.”

Which is precious.

“The verbal trigger is just the Elvish word for shit. M’ide. Right?”

“No? Taako told me that it was—sir, are you _also_ learning wizardly magics?”

“Oh. Well, it’s different for elves, with that one, cuz they don’t often _need it_. And. Uh. No, I can’t, but my grandfather was a wizard, so I know shit. Just can’t do it.”

“Oh. Uh. I’m not sure that’s how magic works, but—“

“Trust me, this is the one thing that I’ll tell you not to question. Like—question everything? Don’t question that. C’mon, try it.”

“You just want me to say a cuss. Sir, I cuss all the time.”

“Do it!”

“M—m’ide?”

He touches his little focus to Magnus’ hand, and a tiny orb of light manifests within, working as a lantern. Magnus fistbumps Angus with his other hand.

“Uh. Thank you, sir?”

“Let’s, uh. let’s drop the sirs, Angus. I’m thirty-two, not two-hundred, c’mon, kid.”

“Oh. Okay. Um.”

And Angus reads him a boring mystery story, and he falls asleep, and for once, he doesn’t have a nightmare.

_vi._

Magnus finds out about Kravitz one month into Kravitz and Taako’s relationship. Now, Magnus, of the two non-Taako members of Tres Horny Boys, is probably the most pro-Raven Queen, and thus the least intimidated by Kravitz, but, uh. He is _brutally uncomfortable_ to find the grim reaper passed out on the couch that he was about to sit down on.

Taako, hearing Magnus’ reasonable verbal reaction of a scream, rushes out of the kitchen and says, “Shit!” at a loud enough volume to wake Kravitz up.

“Huh?”

“What the _fuck_ , Taako? Did you kidnap—“

“No, no, he—he slept over, Magnus. Aren’t you and Carey besties, because—she knows—“

“Uh, we are, and I’m a little bit pissed that she didn’t tell me about you sleeping with Death?”

“Look. Listen—“  
“Can you not divulge the details of our sex life to Magnus?” Kravitz asks, and his accent is _not_ Fantasy Cockney.

“Listen! We had a chat after the whole… Refuge Stitch, and, uh, we really hit it off, and it’s going well, and if you tell Merle I’ll murder you.”

“I mean, look, I’m pro. I told you after the whole lab debacle that Kravitz was a pretty hot guy—“

“Thank you,” says Kravitz.

“Yeah, he has eyes, don’t get all high and mighty, skullface.”

“But, uh—what the _fuck_.”

“It’s actually interesting, in our respective religions, our patron goddesses—Taako’s being Istus’ and mine being the Raven Queen—they’re in love.”

And Taako and Kravitz explain their relationship. Magnus is a little bit worried about Kravitz’ motivations, but he thinks, at least there’s not the risk of losing each other to death. At least there’s that. And he thinks, he hasn’t seen Taako this happy since—

He can’t place the thought. Huh.

So he steals the pancakes Taako made for breakfast, and he and Kravitz talk about religion, and, hey, he’s always happy to see his family expand.

_vii._

After a day of feeling nothing, Magnus isn’t sure if he’s ready to feel everything. That’s his thought, as Barry Bluejeans hands him a vial, and as Lucretia cries.

The hammer hits, and he feels the reflex immediately.

___________________________________________

_act five: magnus_

“Everyone knows his name, his story. And everyone who _met_ him knew him, proper. He was one of the warmest, kindest people you’d ever meet. And I’m talking about a man who stole a book from me the first time we met. […] Yeah, I—I wanted a laugh break there, thank you, Madam Lucretia. Uh. But—he was—it’s easy to simplify his story as that of a warrior. But he was more than that, and anyone who’s spoken to him could—ah, shit, didn’t wanna cry. He was—he was more than that, and it took him too long to recognize that, but it took me minutes. He was a friend to all living things. He was a smile and a hug, in the darkest of times. He was—he was my brother. And I know that he’ll be happy in his afterlife—I have—you know. Hah. Connections. There. But—he’ll be missed, here in the land of the living. Uh. I’m not giving the eulogy proper, thank gods.”

_-an excerpt from Angus McDonald’s eulogy of Magnus Burnsides_

____________________________________________

_i._

They take a month to figure out living situations. None of them have a home, anymore, not the seven of them. But Magnus figures he can build himself a house in Raven’s Roost. And he does. And, for some reason, Angus insists on following. Something about emotional availability and readiness, re: it not being Lucretia or Taako.

Magnus doesn’t mind. He’s never lived alone, not really, and Angus is as good as anyone. He doesn’t know what Angus is to him—a friend, a brother, a son—but he’s family, and Magnus wants to be around his family. And most of his family is either dead or angry at each other. Hell, he’s angry, but he doesn’t want to take it out on them.

Still. Angus, when he comes home from school, or on breaks, often brings them up.

“Do you hate Miss Lucretia, sir?”

“No. I love her. I’m mad right now, though.”

“I know.”

And so on. Always, always, always. Sometimes, he’ll tell Angus about the century, and Angus will ask why those memories didn’t balance out the anger. And Magnus doesn’t have a good answer for that. He doesn’t have a good explanation as to why he’s barely said a word to Barry, as to why he’s only really spent time with Lucretia and the twins, and even then, he’ll only spend time with one on a given day. The twins together are too much. Lup and Lucretia together are bound to make _him_ feel guilty as they blame themselves for each other’s mistakes. And Taako and Lucretia, he can’t even get in the same room at the same time.

“Do you think it’ll get better?”

“I hope?”

“But you don’t think.”

“I’m not the brightest. Do you think?”

“I don’t know your inner machinations, Maggie.”

“Maggie?”

“Testing it out.”

“I don’t hate it? We’ll workshop it.”

“We’ll workshop it.”

Magnus is probably going to be workshopping everything for the rest of his life.

_ii._

On Angus’ thirteenth birthday, Magnus takes him Home. The kid is in awe at everything, in spite of the details from the Story, asking questions and questions and questions, trying to figure everything out. Cat’s Cradle has not changed very much in the fourteen years since Magnus left, but it looks a little bit brighter.

People wave at him, yell his name as he walks down the docks, Angus on his back—until Angus’ growth spurt, Magnus will _probably_ be his main mode of transport. Friends and near strangers and everyone in between. Kids who bullied him. Ex-partners. Old ladies who thought he was trouble. They’re all calling him a hero and doting over him.

What’s important, though, is seeing his mother. She is older—of course she is. She’s fifty-nine, now, if his math is right, which is batshit. Magnus is thirty-four, which is also batshit to her.

“You got old,” she says, and she smiles. Angus hops off of his back as they walk into the gouse.

“Great first words for your only son.”

“Oh, come here. Is this one yours?”

“Legally, we're brothers!” says Angus, beaming, “I’m Angus, Ms. Healer, Ma’am.”

“You didn’t raise him his freakily polite, right, m’ork’eto?”

“No, mom, he’s just, uh. He’s just like that. Angus McDonald, meet Kiva Burnsides, a very talented healer and a cool-ass lady. Mom, today is Angus’ thirteenth birthday.”

“Ah, the age wherein _you_ attempted to backflip off of the docks. Do as he says, not as he does, okay Angus?”

“Ango, the real trick there is to tuck your head in, you’ll avoid concussions.”

“Actually, yes, good, avoid the concussion and you can do as he does, but also do not launch yourself into space.”

His mother starts asking more questions, after that, check-ins and heartfelt moments. He talks about Julia, and about Carey and Avi and Angus and about how he’s so glad to be Home for just a day. He can’t stay forever, but he can visit. They both cry. Angus watches _actual_ TV for the first time, fascinated, and Magnus watches the finale of _Sci-Fi_ / _Fantasy_ _LOST_ , released _one week_ after he left.

He buys Angus that hard candy that’s worth dying for. He prays to his original Istus. He shows Angus where he got into that fight, where he met Davenport, everything.

And when they get back to Raven’s Roost he says, “That was Home, and this is home.”

_iii._

Three years after the world is saved, Magnus opens his door to find Taako and Lucretia talking, and hugging, and he sees a stone in Taako’s hand, and he knows what’s about to happen. What he doesn’t know—as Lucretia, finally younger than Magnus again, cries, thanking Taako, and he says that their truce is over, whatever—is why they had to do this in front of him.

“We just—uh. Mags. How’re you feeling?”

“Normal? I dunno, little bit sleepy?”

Lucretia looks down, and she shakes her head.

“Julia didn’t die in vain,” says Lucretia, “Know that she’s been avenged.”

His mind feels like it’s on fire, but he brings himself to hold his brother, his sister, without really knowing why.

“You lost somebody in Wonderland,” Taako explains, when Magnus asks why he can’t stop crying, “And Lucret—the Director, Merle, and I killed them.”

“Oh. Uh. Why did I—why did I lose them?”

“Because they didn't deserve to take up space in your mind, Magnus,” Lucretia says, and it’s so good to see her like this, “You told Taako and Merle to kill them, and I—well, I already had eyes on them, and we caught them, and we killed them.”

“Um.” He says, and his mind _aches_. “Thank you. So—thank you.”

_iv._

Magnus is very good at pretending that he’s okay, after everything, but he isn’t, and he tries to make that clear to the people close to him. And it’s really only the people close to him that know for sure why he brings Johann everywhere that’s not dangerous. Tactile stimulation, nudges and pushes, a reminder to wake up. A way to snap out of episodes as they begin. An excuse to leave conversations with people on the streets who want him to recap his whole damn life.

“Waxmen party,” he says, and the host tells him that dogs are not allowed in this restaurant, and he responds, “Service animal,” which he questions intensely until Magnus provides cards and documentation in his pocket. Which pisses him off. He almost takes off his glamours for that one.

The necklace of disguise self that Lup got him when they realized that this whole “going out alone” thing would be an issue comes in handy, until moments like this one. He’s meeting up with her and Barry, here. He thanks Istus for the two of them having full-time true sight. Because otherwise, this would be difficult. He looks like a half-elf, less scarred and shorter, straighter -haired. He’s still got the facial hair, but there’s less of it. His eyes make him look like he’s from Faerûn and not Home, and it just feels disconcerting.

Johann helps with that feeling, too, rubs against his leg under the table.

Lup and Barry show up ten minutes later, having pulled a rift in the universe, and he dispels the illusion, gives them both hugs. Lup, lately, is very into the prank where she goes incorporeal halfway through a hug, but Johann growls as she starts it, so she stops and scratches his chin.

The waiter—a halfling with bangs that go past their eyes—gasps at the sight of them, and says, “Uh, the—Ava didn’t tell me—“

“We didn’t tell Ava,” Magnus says, “Don’t lose your mind. Me and Barry don’t like attention. And Lup does, but, uh. This is a safe space. What’s your name?”

“Uh. Iona Raizel, it’s an honor to—“

“Nah, nah, let’s, uh—Iona, please know that before you, like—worship us—that it took Lup _five years_ to realize that she lived in my house for a month and half when I was a kid. It took her brother a _month_. And Barry wasted all of his spell-slots on a spell that gave me a concussion. And also, I have eaten multiple rocks.”

“And the Light of Creation.”

“Taako’s idea,” Lup explains, “Look, Iona, if you’re chill, I can end your shift, like, stat. You said the host gave you shit for Johann, Mags?”

Magnus nods.

“Okay, then let’s do the ol’ ‘That was a trick! You would let _us_ , the Birds, get away with it,”

Magnus nods _again_. It’s good for shaming public assholery _and_ for getting shit done, all at the same time. Lup had listed this as reason number three for getting Magnus that illusion necklace.

“Don’t make a scene, babe,” Barry says, “Just be—“

Magnus drags Johann off toward the front, and he swears he hears Barry saying, “Look, kid, we’re obviously no angels.”

_v._

When Magnus turns forty, and Angus moves out, Magnus takes up knitting. He knits sweaters for the dogs, he knits scarves for his friends, he knits and he knits and he knits. He still carves, of course, but he thinks he should start varying his hobbies, and this one feels healthy. It also feels like he is turning into his grandfather.

Davenport _also_ feels like that, apparently, because he—grayer than Magnus, thanks—will not stop making fun of him for it. The Captain is a good dude, up to a point, and that point is these jokes.

Merle is perhaps a bit nicer, largely because Merle is never one to turn down free clothing. But also, he says, it’s good for staying connected to Istus. Merle gardens for Pan, Kravitz collects shiny baubles for the Raven Queen, and Magnus, apparently, knits.

“It helps them connect more with you, y’know? Just bolsters their support. Ol’ Pan gets grouchy if I don’t plant the forget-me-nots where he likes ‘em, though, so you’d better be careful, Maggie.”

And it does connect him to Istus. She speaks to him in dreams, tells him of the whims of the planar system. On occasion, she offers him warlock abilities or high-up clericism. He turns them down, of course—he’s used to no magic, and his brief brushes with lycanthropy during the century and his briefer brush with vampirism a couple of years back have given him definitive proof that maybe having powers _given_ to him is not really helpful to his own personal mental state. She can’t grant him the ability to _learn_ magic, anyway, so the argument ends up moot. They still commune in the night, though, in dreams.

He never runs out of yarn.

_vi._

Angus tries to give the knife back a couple of times, and Magnus always, always, always says no.

“Family tradition. It’s important.”

“But it’s _yours_.”

“And now it’s yours. Present tense, it’s _yours_.”

“Don’t fight him,” says Lucretia, in the corner, “He’s almost as stubborn as I am.”

_vii._

He dies smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> NOTES:  
> (1) i really, really love the headcanon of inate magic on the home plane. i also love projecting Disability Feelings onto characters that i relate to.  
> (2) "HOW'D HE MAKE THAT CUP THOUGH" is a tumblr post i think i made about 17 times when i was stuck in bed sick a couple months ago, and i still didn't tackle it here. why.  
> (3) my favorite joke in this fic is that everything on Home is called Sci-Fi/Fantasy XYZ as compared to Fantasy XYZ and i came up with that TONIGHT.  
> (4) ALIENS  
> (5) the symbolic notes here are actually not even worth going into my metaphors are p obvious and heavyhanded so whatever
> 
> comment! tell a friend! hmu about taz on tumblr @yahooanswer!


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